Very often, the enjoyable part of the writing process is the messy middle, where you get to play with your words, rearrange your ideas, and try different sentences on for size. For this reason, we believe that writing projects shouldn't happen—start to finish—every week. Our kids need time to play, tinker, and revise their work. 

A mother asked us at Brave Writer if she was doing enough writing with her child. She told us that her son wrote in his journal on Monday, wrote a poem on Tuesday, crafted a short three-paragraph essay on Wednesday, sent a thank-you note to his grandmother on Thursday, and polished a written narration on Friday. "Was that enough writing for her 11-year-old?" she sincerely wondered. We responded, “That’s more writing than anyone should do in a week!”

The truth is: writing is rewriting. The most enjoyable part of the process is messing with the stuff you first put down on paper (or type into a Word document). To expect a child to produce completed, polished, original writing every day is more than most professional writers are required to produce.

As a result, we suggest that students only be asked to complete (start to finish) one writing project per month. Just one. If you have five kids, you can already see that getting five projects completed in one month with one parent to guide them is highly challenging and unlikely to happen! So imagine thinking you could shepherd five projects per child per week! No wonder so little writing gets done. We all feel exhausted before we start and give up.

To bring some sanity back into the writing programs you create, give yourself some time to complete. You can use our four-week process to help you manage your time with your kids and to help you focus on what part of the process comes next. There’s no need to work on the same piece every day, either. Give your child’s writing room to breathe, time for your child to get away from it so that when the student returns to the original piece, it is with fresh eyes and renewed energy.

Each stage of the writing process takes about a week. It’s the reason that we suggest that homeschooling moms not require more than one completed writing project per month. Does that mean that your kids will do no other writing during the month? Not at all. They will still do their copywork, their dictation passages, and their handwriting pages. They may have a thank-you note to jot, keep a list of birds they see, or freewrite each week about a random topic. What we mean is that a writing project that will be taken through the whole writing process from research to freewriting to revision to polishing will need a month. 

A monthly writing project should be taken through the four major steps:

  1. Topic selection and research
  2. Freewriting
  3. Narrowing and expanding
  4. Finding readers (publishing)

Resources

  • For more information on what each writing stage entails, and how to teach them, check out our podcasts on Natural Stages of Growth in Writing
  • If you'd like us to provide writing project ideas for you, then check out our composition formats
  • Our online classes can give you detailed guidance in following the four-week process through to completion for any number of writing projects. Middle School Writing Projects is the perfect example of this. 

Spotlight

  • Product Jot It Down! (5-7 yrs)
  • Product Partnership Writing Collection One
  • Product Partnership Writing Collection Two
  • Product Partnership Writing Collection Three
  • Product Building Confidence (11-12 yrs)
  • Online Class Science Projects
  • Online Class History Projects
  • Online Class Nonfiction Projects
  • Online Class Passion Projects