A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

We’re re-recording our Natural Stages of Growth in Writing series! If you’re a longtime listener, you may remember our first series on the topic. It was made up of conversations between Julie and her son. Now we’re recording in an updated format with more lessons learned and observations gleaned over the years.

In this Brave Writer podcast episode, we cover the Beginning Writers stage, also known as the “Jot It Down” stage. This stage actually starts when your baby says their first word and you reflexively write it down. As they grow older and break out into passionate stories like toddlers do, jot down those stories right there in the moment. In this stage you’re teaching your child that writing is simply capturing thought in words that can be preserved for an interested audience.

Julie and Melissa share adorable anecdotes of when they did this with their own children, not only building a foundational concept of writing, but also preserving invaluable family moments.

Be sure to stick around for the end of the episode to learn about the Beginning Writers Bundle and the Quill & Jot It Down Bundle.

Show Notes

The “Jot It Down Stage”

This first writing stage actually starts when your baby says their first word and you reflexively write it down. Don’t stop there. As they grow older and break out into passionate stories like toddlers do, jot down those stories right there in the moment. This stage lasts until your child starts to pick up a pencil themselves… but of course you don’t ever have to stop writing down their cute moments!

The Foundation for Writing

The “Jot It Down” stage lays the foundation for your child’s writing for the rest of their lives. You’re:

• teaching your child that writing is simply capturing thought in words that can be preserved for an interested audience.
• showing them that what they think and express matters.
• transforming their thoughts and words into something they can physically hold and even play with.

For example, when Julie jotted down her four year old son’s Lego character stories on a clipboard, he then carried around the clipboard around him as he played Legos. 

Family Archives

Not only does the Beginning Writers “Jot It Down” stage lay the conceptual foundation of writing for your kids, but it also acts as a family archive. Melissa’s young adults love to go back and look at what they said when they were little.

Resources

• Big juicy questions. Memories that last a lifetime. Meaningful ways to learn grammar, spelling, and punctuation. If this way of homeschooling speaks to you, check out our Brave Writer programs: Quill (ages 5-7), Dart (8-10), Arrow (11-12), Boomerang (13-14), Slingshot (15-18). On sale through the end of June. Sale includes a free lifetime membership to Brave Learner Home. Purchase by June 30 to take advantage of this deal!
• Check out the Brave Writer Beginning Writers Bundle, on sale through the end of June.
• Check out the Quill & Jot It Down Bundle, on sale through the end of June.
• Start a free trial of CTCmath.com to try the math program that’s sure to grab and keep your child’s attention!
• Sign up for our Text Message Pod Ring to get podcast updates and more!
• Send us podcast topic ideas by texting us: +1 (833) 947-3684.

Connect with Julie

• Instagram: @juliebogartwriter
• Threads: @juliebogartwriter
• Twitter: @bravewriter
• Facebook: facebook.com/bravewriter

Connect with Melissa

• Website: melissawiley.com
• Substack: melissawiley.substack.com
• Instagram: @melissawileybooks
• Twitter: @melissawiley

Produced by NOVA Media

Are you planning for the upcoming school year? Whether you’re homeschooling or sending kids to a traditional school, writing is that one skill that so many of us find unnerving.

One of the big problems is that your child’s age or grade level doesn’t tell you much about your writer. Writing develops the same way as any other skill: over time, at the writers’ own pace.

Over 22 years of working with tens of thousands of students, I’ve developed what I call the natural stages of growth in writing and my confidence in its accuracy has only solidified over time.

Today on the Brave Writer podcast, we’re going to walk through each of those stages.

Show Notes

• [04:58] Beginning Writers: Jot it Down (5-7)

This is the stage where a child is too young to write and isn’t quite reading yet, but is so eager to self-express. They are a writer in need of a secretary—someone to jot down their thoughts and read those thoughts back to them so they can experience being authors long before being able to write for themselves. This stage focuses on delight and the joy of writing.

• [07:51] Emerging Writers: Partnership Writing (8-10)

In this stage, you are a partner with your child in writing. Participating in the writing process with our child is not cheating, but in fact opens them up to the benefits of the adult’s vocabulary, as well as the mental processing of getting words onto the page. The challenge is the gap between a child’s oral fluency and their writing, spelling, and punctuation skills. This is normal—children will continue to grow into the mechanics of writing, and your participation helps.

• [10:31] Middle School Writers: Building Confidence (11-12)

We tend to see two dichotomies at this stage of writing: Either a child shows a lot of enthusiasm for writing, or they absolutely hate it—often swapping between the two. They may write a lot one day only to refuse to write the next. Their spelling and punctuation may seem strong only to shift into reckless mistakes. They have a lot of competence, but many of their skills are still under construction. Allow them to self-express in the ways they like, and then give them rest from that commitment. The rough edges will smooth themselves out over time.

• [15:39] High School Writers: Experimenting with Forms (13-14)

Once your child has built confidence and experience in using writing as a tool, they are ready to learn how to put that writing into the formats of academic life. These formats require a level of maturity and rhetorical imagination that doesn’t typically form until puberty. Kids at this stage feel comfortable with writing in general, even if they don’t yet know how to write an essay.

• [17:29] College Prep Writers: Joining the Conversation (15-18)

Your kids, when they enter academic life, are joining a conversation already in progress. As your kids get an education, they are going to be reading what the experts and others have to say and amassing an understanding of what interests them the most. By the time they graduate, they will be called on to make meaningful contributions to those fields.

• [19:43] Adult Writers: Fluent and Competent (18 and beyond)

These are adults not afraid to write their words, including professional writers, academics, and confident, competent adults. Once you’ve made it through all of the stages of writing, you should be able to face any writing task without worry or intimidation.

Visit bravewriter.com/stages to learn more about how our products and classes are organized according to these stages and find the ones that are going to help you.

Resources

• Visit bravewriter.com/stages to find the right products for your child’s current learning stage
• Want help getting started with Brave Writer? Go to bravewriter.com/getting-started
• Try us out! Get our FREE seven-day Writing Blitz guide: http://go.bravewriter.com/writing-blitz

Connect with Julie

• Instagram: instagram.com/juliebogartwriter
• Twitter: twitter.com/bravewriter
• Facebook: facebook.com/bravewriter