How to Teach Writing: Julie Bogart Interview

Find tips on how to teach children to love writing in this interview with Julie Bogart, creator of the Brave Writer program. You’ll learn to love writing yourself along the way, even if you currently find it stressful!

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An Interview with Julie Bogart

I learned about Julie Bogart’s Brave Writer program years ago, so when I heard she had a new book out all about helping reluctant writers I was very interested!

I received an advance copy of Help! My Kid Hates Writing: How to Turn Struggling Students into Brave Writers, and I was very impressed. This is a book that can help any parent or educator trying to help a struggling writer – even if that writer is yourself!

Today, I’m excited to share an interview about the book with the author, Julie Bogart. You can watch the interview here:

I’ve also included the full transcript below (the video also has subtitles).

Key Moments From the Interview:

• 1:13 What are the writing challenges that you find have remained consistent over the years? And what do you see? New challenges showing up today?
• 7:31 How can adults overcome trauma around writing so that they can guide children to become confident writers?
• 16:21 Partnership writing: What is it, and how does it work?
• 20:03 How to help kids deal with boring writing assignments.
• 25:13 How to use copywork and dictation to teach writing.
• 28:46 How do we balance using AI, with traditional writing tools?
• 35:17 How leading a full life makes someone a better writer.
• 40:23 Achieving personal growth by becoming a more confident writer

Interview Transcript: Julie Bogart Talks About Her New Book: Help! My Kid Hates Writing

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Good morning!

Julie Bogart: Morning.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Thanks for being here.

Julie Bogart: Happy to. It’s great to be here.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: I’m so glad. So today I’m thrilled to interview Julie Bogart, who’s the creator of the award winning Brave Writer program, and she’s going to be talking about her upcoming book, which is called Help! My Kid Hates Writing: How to Turn Struggling Students into Brave Writers. So I received an advanced copy of this manuscript, and I definitely believe this is a book that can help many parents and children, and also educators.

So in your book, Julie, you share proven strategies that transform writing from a dreaded chore into more of an adventure in self-expression. Right?

Julie Bogart: Yes.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: And I noticed you have a lot of practical advice. You have hands on exercise and lots of insights, just things to think about. And I think these are all tips that will help parents who send their children to public or private school as well as homeschooling families.

So today I’ve got a few questions, and we’re going to explore how Julie helps both children and adults actually develop as confident, enthusiastic writers.

Julie Bogart: Let’s do it. My favorite subject.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: You’re an expert.

Writing Challenges Through the Years

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: So my 1st question is, you’ve taught. You’ve taught writing, and you’ve helped others teach writing for many years now. So what are the writing challenges that you find have remained consistent over the years? And what do you see? New challenges showing up today?

Julie Bogart: Yeah, okay, let’s take it each piece. So first, the historic challenges really are just around the way writing gets taught in school. Probably you can think back to a time when you got a paper turned in and it came back with a grade you didn’t expect, or a group of comments that felt hurtful like, “Wait, did they not see my point?” Or “I thought this section was really good, and this teacher thought it was really bad.”

There is usually some history of a little bit of either trauma or disillusionment. That is a part of the evaluation process of writing, and so the persistent challenge that parents and educators have is to shed their faith in a system that actually damages writers.

If they could be given an alternative, I think they would use it.

But unfortunately, we keep doubling down on the very systems that create that damage, and then those damages persist into the next generation. And so we have resistant writers all the way down, whether you’re 50 years old or you’re 5.

Adults as Damaged Writers

Julie Bogart: And, in fact, there was this one executive that I met while I was working on this book. He was 69 years old. We were at a business networking event. So he was telling me about his businesses. He has built multiple successful 7 and 8 figure businesses in his career. So I felt like a pretty small fry next to him.

And I said, Well, I have this business. It teaches writing. He goes. Oh, really, I said, yeah, he said, “Well, how do you do it? Online?” I said, “Well, we have these classes and manuals, but in the classes we enroll both the parent and the child, so that the parent can learn how to be this coach, this supportive presence in a child’s life.”

And he immediately said to me, “Oh, I wish I had had that!”

And I said, “Oh, really, tell me more about that?”

And he said, “Well, when I was in elementary school I wrote this 3 page story that I was so proud of. I had my best friend read it, and he loved it. I had my mom read it, and she loved it, and I turned it in. And when it came back from the teacher. I got an A for the story, but an F in grammar, and I couldn’t see that A anymore.”

Without intervention, a bad writing experience can destroy a writing identity.

Julie Bogart: And he said, for the rest of my life. Okay? So we’re talking from 5th grade to age 69. He won’t type.

He’s used secretaries. If he’s leading a board meeting with a whiteboard, he has someone else transcribe what he says. He uses voice to text on his phone, and he got tears in his eyes, telling me how incompetent he felt as a writer.

This is a fully successful grown man at retirement age. I think we have to admit that this system of devaluing self-expression and marking people down for what they don’t know. I mean, if you don’t use a period, it’s because you don’t know how to use one. If you don’t put a capital letter at the start of a sentence. It’s not laziness.

Children are still learning, and so when we punish them for the mechanics, and we miss the content, we wind up with damaged riders. So that’s the biggest hurdle that everybody faces.

Tip: Don’t punish someone who is learning how to write.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, I really like your comparison in the book too. We don’t punish a child who’s learning how to walk because they fall down right.

Julie Bogart: And we provide the support they need, even after they learn to walk. I always like to remind parents, you know, your little toddler can walk, but when you go to Disneyland you bring a stroller. You don’t rely on that child to do all that walking when they’re still young, small, they haven’t built up their legs, they can’t do that distance.

The same is true, for writing. A child learns how to handwrite, but that doesn’t mean they’re ready to physically write for an entire page. It doesn’t mean that they’re ready to organize and logically create a systematic approach to a topic.

These are skills that develop over time, and they require a huge amount of input from the caring adults in their lives.

You know, you asked me. The second part of that question was, what are the new challenges?

The biggest challenge of today, of course, is AI. It’s ChatGPT. These large language models.

And the reason those are challenging to navigate is because if you are a damaged writer from this unworkable system, Chat GPT feels like a choir of angels. It’s like, “Hooray! I don’t have to subject myself to that anymore. I can just go get the essay, the letter of recommendation, my wedding vows. I can just go get those right from a robot, basically. And I won’t be scrutinized. I won’t risk being devalued or getting a low grade.”

AI is a modern challenge for teaching writing.

Julie Bogart: And so, if we are going to meaningfully elevate human creativity, intelligence, insight, generation, critical thinking. If we’re going to elevate those things enough to compete with AI, we have to start by valuing them. We can’t devalue them. And that’s really what my book is about.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah. Also, I think your emphasis on self-expression. That’s what AI cannot do.

Julie Bogart: It can never do, it can imitate other people’s self-expression, but it can never actually narrate the thoughts that are in your head.

But before you want to risk exposing those, those have to be valued. And that’s really where we begin in my book. How do we value the original mind life? The quirky sense of humor, the creative expression, the quantity of facts that children, master, how do we value that in writing, when we’re put off by bad handwriting, poor spelling and missing mechanics. And that’s what we address in my book.

How to Overcome Writing Trauma as an Adult

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, no, definitely. Thank you. So you’re talking about these adults as damaged writers. And I want to ask you about how this. You know, trauma really impacts their ability to guide children as they become writing. And how do? How would you recommend that adults who have trauma around writing overcome that?

Julie Bogart: Now. Fortunately, I dedicated an entire chapter to that in my book, so you can read more. But I’ll give you the short answer here

When you coach a child writer, I want you to remember being a child learning anything, whether it’s tennis or t-ball. What supported you? What made you want to participate?

I tell the story in the book of how, when I was a kid, my family played tennis, and so, when I was 1st learning how, I was enrolled in a tennis clinic for children.

This coach did not start by telling us the rules for tennis how to keep score in tennis. He didn’t even explain, like, how you would win the game.

He said, “The most important thing about tennis is getting the ball over the net.”

And so he distributed a bunch of rackets. He had buckets of green balls, and our job was to try and get the ball from one side of the net to the other. However, we could.

Teach Writing Through Playful Practice

Julie Bogart: And so a bunch of wild practice began. Kids were whacking it with the side of the racket. They were trying to hit it between their legs. They were chasing a bouncing ball and helping it over the net.

This is what it looks like to develop a relationship with the thing that then you are going to learn, right? We don’t just start out in gymnastics saying, Learn how to do a flip on the beam we play around, doing forward and backward rolls, and walking on the equipment and swinging from it

With writing, how often do we begin with a wide array of pencils and pens, all different kinds of paper to write on, jotting down complicated thoughts that children are having, that they can’t spell or punctuate yet?

How often do we give them the experience of their thoughts being valued and preserved in writing, and read to interested readers before we ask them to do it correctly, or to do it according to the standards of modern American writing. English. Right?

So, I say in the book, the one way that we can change course, not imitate these damaging techniques is to enthusiastically look for moments of self-expression that arise spontaneously, and then to jot those down.

Tip: Look for Moments of Spontaneous Self-Expression

Julie Bogart: And the way that looks in a family is. You’re in the kitchen, stir frying dinner, and in runs little Johnny from the outside starts telling a story about his dog who was chasing a squirrel. Drop everything, you know. Grab the pad of paper that’s near the counter or the back of an envelope, and just start writing down Johnny’s words as he says them don’t announce it. Don’t tell him what you’re doing. Start writing

Now. He may say to you, “Mom, what are you doing?” Just say, “Oh, Johnny, this is so good! I’m afraid I’m going to forget your story, so I’m writing it down.

Keep going. Jot the whole thing down. Sometimes those kids square their shoulders and go on, for you know another 10 min. And when you’ve got it all written down, let Johnny go.

That night at dinner, I want you to pull out that scrap of paper and say to the family, “Johnny was telling me about when Rocky was chasing the squirrel. It was so good. I wrote it down. I just want to read it to everybody!”

And then read it. That’s it.

Celebrate Self-Expression in Writing

Julie Bogart: Toss it in the library basket, read it a few more times when you read library books. Let your child have the experience of being read; of their words not disappearing into thin air, but being preserved for an interested audience.

That is where the writing life starts. It’s knowing that what you have to express has substantive value, that it deserves to be recorded.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, no, that seems incredibly empowering, that they know that you value their language so much that you’re writing it down and recording it so that you remember it.

Julie Bogart: Yes, and you know, if they catch on, they start asking you to do it right. They’ll say, I remember my 4 year old was like, “Hey, I’m making these Lego men like. Let’s write it down.” My daughter, she was jotting down her sister’s stories at bedtime.

Like, once they catch on to the idea that writing is about preserving thoughts that we don’t want to forget, they like writing. Because they think they have important thoughts. Who doesn’t? We all think our thoughts are important!

Writing is about Preserving Thoughts

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah. And I love this because these early experiences are so formative and having that kind of experience is sort of protective. I would think also against some negative… Because inevitably you’re going to have that English teacher, or that, whatever you know.

Julie Bogart: Right.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Boss, whoever it is who says your writing is despicable, basically. I’ve had it. I think everyone has had it at some point in time. And this does feel very protective overall.

I find you defining, writing differently from like other books on teaching writing, that I have read, and this example you just gave as parents, as transcribers for young writers, and I loved your, you gave an example of writing down your teens’ arguments.

Julie Bogart: Oh, yeah.

A Brilliant Tip for Inspiring Teens to Write

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: You’re in an argument with your teenager. They’re telling you why they’re right. And you’re like, just start writing that down. And I was like, wow!

That is brilliant, because they feel heard, they feel seen. And that’s that age where, you know, you can reinforce a relationship or you can destroy it with your teenager when you’re disagreeing.

I have 3 teenagers, soon to be 4, and like every interaction with them is, you know, I’m like I have a choice. I can reinforce or I can destroy. And this is such a fantastic way to reinforce and also continue your unique philosophy on writing. So I’d like you to talk about that more. What makes your philosophy on writing unique.

Julie Bogart: Well, I love that you have teenagers, and that you could relate to that part. You know. I’ve even heard people say they use it in their marriages, right? Because there’s something about being taken seriously. And once you’ve been taken seriously, you’re more open to additional input.

Humans want to be taken seriously. Writing someone else’s words shows that you hear them, and value their words.

Julie Bogart: Because now you’re like, okay, they really did get what I’m saying. Now, I can hear data research that differs from me because I don’t have to defend myself. They’ve already understood me.

But when you’re talking about a teen, especially when you’re preparing them for academic writing, you’re also showing them that they actually know how to build an argument. So if you’ve been arguing over a curfew, or whether they can drive downtown alone, you’re able to point back to that when they’re writing that paper about Jane Eyre and say, you know, let’s talk about how well you constructed this argument. And now let’s compare how you could do that with Jane Eyre.

It’s a tool, right? You’re using what is innately brewing and growing to help them achieve other goals as well.

Sources of Inspiration: Peter Elbow, Pat Schneider

And when you say what makes my writing philosophy unique. I would say that I am actually drawing on some pretty big giants in the field of composition, Peter Elbow, Pat Schneider. These are 2 of my luminaries, and what they introduced in the 19 eighties and nineties was this notion of writing almost being like a democratic experience, like everybody, should take the same writing risks. The teacher and the students.

Writing is a collaborative process. Writing is for the sake of self expression, but also it is to get to know yourself more intimately. I can’t tell you how many times I think I know what I think until I try to write it down. And then suddenly the muddiness is very clear, and the illogic and the inconsistency in my own point of view, and the lack of vocabulary to express it.

So writing is a gift, and we want our students to have it.

And so I think in today’s market, where I stand out is, I’m saying that a parent can actually be a writing coach, even if they don’t have a background in writing, because what the child needs is the relationship more than you being, you know, a version of a writing manual like somebody being a walking, talking Chicago Manual of Style. We don’t need that. You don’t have to know how to use a semicolon to be a great writing coach, and I think that’s what my work offers, that we don’t see other places.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, no. I completely agree. That leads really well into my next question, which is.. just wanted to give you a second.

Julie Bogart: That’s fine!

Partnership Writing

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: So my next question is, what is partnership writing? You have this thing you call partnership writing, and how does it build confidence in reluctant writers?

Julie Bogart: So picture your child learning to eat. When the baby is born we either bottle or breastfeed, and the baby has no control. They can’t hold the bottle. They can’t hold the breast, so they’re completely dependent on you.

As a result, you control the process. You decide when they eat you, clean them up after they’ve spit up. You are in charge of the process.

But there comes a point where the baby like grabs, you know you’re like, oh, maybe, and teeth are coming in. I think we better give them food. So you know you go get the pureed food or the boiled carrot, and you start feeding this to your child. Again, you’re still pretty in control of this process. You can scoop the food off their face, you can wipe it. You can decide how much they eat.

Learning Requires Experimentation.

But there comes a day in every child’s life that gets documented with a photograph, and that is the day they eat spaghetti for the very 1st time.

We put a bowl of spaghetti in front of them. We sometimes give them a baby fork, sometimes we don’t, and they begin feeding themselves in a very ham-handed way, and by the end of the meal they are covered in red sauce. There are noodles on their head, and some of it has been eaten.

Julie Bogart: What I like to ask parents all the time is, who’s closer to being an independent eater? The baby who’s nursing, who has no muss or fuss on their face, or the child who just made the biggest mess of their lives eating spaghetti?

Who’s closer? It’s that child who is just starting out.

Learning new skills is a messy process.

Julie Bogart: But here’s the thing. Even when they can feed themselves with their hands, there are environments where we step back in. We cut up their food, or we puree it, or we might feed something to them. We teach them table manners.

Even by age 5, when you have a fairly independent eater, you’re still helping them pour the milk into their cereal. Even when they’re 10, and they’re pretty competent at that point, you still don’t really want them to go to a wedding. You’re like the, the way they’re going to use the fork and the knife. I’m not going to approve of, right? Like, each increment still depends on some level of participation from the parent.

But it looks messy every time the child takes over more of that job.

So in writing, the unfortunate practice in school is, we go from them, not writing at all, and the adult controlling it by jotting down their thoughts to handing them the pencil and then taking our hands completely off.

We’re saying, oh, no, we can’t touch it, or we won’t know if it’s the child’s writing. But then what we get back is the spaghetti moment, and we’re angry about it. We’re like, wait a minute. That shouldn’t look like that. You should be doing it well and perfectly.

We need to let writing be messy.

Partnership writing is filling in that gap. It’s saying, I know you can’t do everything all the way yourself, but I also know you can do a lot. So we’re going to do it together.

We’re going to brainstorm together. We’re going to share ideas.

Some of my ideas will make it into your writing. That’s totally fine. Just like when they were learning to talk, some of your words made it into their speech.

But we’re going to collaborate, and I’m going to model some processes. I’m going to give you freedom to try things, and I’m not going to scrutinize.

I’m just going to support.

It’s this notion of collaboration through a journey that needs support that should not be done like a fork, knife, and a steak independently at age 5. Please, no.

Favorite Tips for Dealing with Boring School Assignments

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah. Well, on the message of support, topic of support, children often struggle with, frankly, boring school writing assignments and…

Julie Bogart: Oh, yeah.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: I really appreciate that your book includes tips for dealing with these. So you have a lot of tips in the book. I think they’re all really interesting. I’m just curious if there’s 1 or 2 that are your personal favorites, that you come back to again and again.

Julie Bogart: I mean, there’s always some flexibility in every writing assignment, and good writers know this. They’re always going to tweak the assignment to the thing they’re interested in. So, helping your kids get familiar with their general bent. For instance, if you get a history assignment rather than just being like, it’s the Civil War. You have to write about Gettysburg.

If it’s the Civil War, ask your child. See what they’re interested in. Are they more interested in human interest stories more about the culture, more about the military weapons and development? Are they interested in the politics? Instead of just caving into like a preconceived idea of what the assignment is, look for a way to shape it so that it engages your child.

I give one example in the book where my son Liam was being asked to write about First Nations in Canada. And, you know, he didn’t have a whole lot of interest in Canada.

Hack for Boring Assignments: Find the Hook

Julie Bogart: But we suddenly realized that he played lacrosse. And lacrosse was actually invented by the Iroquois in Canada. And suddenly, that paper wrote itself, because he was so interested in this aspect.

So one of the ways you can partner with your kids is to help them find the hook. Because, once you’ve got a hook, you know…

If you’re writing about Ohio and your kid loves roller coasters, well, then, let’s start with Cedar Point as our opening hook. Like, “I bet you didn’t know that Ohio had one of the best roller coaster theme parks in America.” Right? Like, help them tie what they know and care about to the assignment.

So that would be my 1st hack.

Hack for Boring Assignments: Switch Up the Genre

Julie Bogart: Another example of how to tweak an assignment is the genre that they write in. Sometimes these sort of wooden reports, you know, write 3 paragraphs about Galileo? That feels kind of dull to kids.

But I had a student in one of my 1st classes who decided to write a letter series between 2 philosophers, 2 scientists from different eras. Right? So it’s Galileo writing to Kepler or something, and what that does is, it helps the child move into this relational way of sharing the information which is more mirroring speech.

And so, for a particularly hard subject, putting it in a letter format, or a poem, or writing it as a fictional, historical, fictional account, or keeping a diary as a historical figure makes these topics more accessible.

If your kid is in school, you may have to check with the teacher to see if you can do that. But I will tell you something. Most teachers are pretty amenable to those changes, unless the goal of the assignment is that specific format.

So, if the goal of the assignment is the format, now you can ask if you can change the topic. You can say, “All right. I know you want them to write about X. But if the goal is the format, can they write about Y?” And just collaborate with your teachers. Usually when you show that level of interest teachers are pretty flexible.

Note: Hooks should be specific.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah. One thing I noticed about your hooks is they’re actually pretty detailed, like Cedar Point. That’s a very defined hook. But then it’s a lens, and same with lacrosse; like, this is a very defined moment, but I can see how you can look at a lot of the history of First Nations in Canada through the introduction introductory lens of they invented lacrosse.

Julie Bogart: Yes.

And really, the truth is, you are just trying to hook the attention of your child. Right? So what does it? What is the thing that pulls them in?

They still may find some of the research tedious. I remember, my daughter was writing about China. We had done this long unit on Asia. And so I said, it’s time to write this into a 5th grade report. She picked China, and, you know, some of it is just the Tang dynasty. Right? You’re just like, okay, let’s go find that information. Learn how to narrate and paraphrase it. Those are great skills.

But if we’re going to write it into a report, I don’t want her to think the report is just this dull, dusty, dry thing.

Writing Should Engage the Writer

Julie Bogart: So the hook for her was fireworks. So the opening of the report was really describing the fireworks, and then we got out our Disney movie of Mulan, and we watched all the fireworks going off so we could actually remind ourselves what they sound like, what they look like, what they are in the sky like.

These are ways that your child will be far more engaged in writing than if you just park them at the kitchen table with, you know, notebook paper, and say, “Okay, write about China.”

Hello! No one wants to do that. You don’t want to do that, right?

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yep. The fireworks! That’s pretty interesting.

Julie Bogart: That helps draw them in right.

Copywork and Dictation as Tools for Teaching Writing

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, so you do mention using copy work and dictation, which are, you know, pretty old fashioned methods.

Julie Bogart: Yes.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: To teach writing. So I’d like to hear more on how you help, how you take these highly structured tasks and use them to complement the freedom that’s found in most of your writing exercises.

Julie Bogart: Oh, that’s, I love how you worded that. That might be my favorite way anyone ever worded that. That was great.

Copywork and Dictation in French Schools

Julie Bogart: So, first of all, just so you know, copywork and dictation are still daily practice in France. So not so old, right? I mean, they’re old, but they’re still like pride of France.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Oh, I went to French schools for 3 years. I know.

Julie Bogart: You totally know, right? And did you see last year they did a Grande Dictee in the Champs Elysees in Paris, which is like a grand dictation. A thousand people came. They’re all sitting at these desks, listening raptly. I mean, for them, it’s like playing Wordle.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, with their fountain pens. Right?

Julie Bogart: Yes! And when I studied in France as an exchange student, the very first dictation we did was front and back of a page, obviously in French, and they’ve got accents, and they’ve got like all these squiggles that we don’t have in English, and I made 83 mistakes on 2 pages, because French was hard.

These tools are meant to train your attention on transcription, not ideas. Your only goal is to hear intonation and be able to make, you know, lucid judgments about when to indent in a paragraph. When to use a capital letter, when to use a period or a semicolon or an m dash, right?

You are spending time hearing how language lands and treating punctuation as, you know, the, the road signs of how it should be read.

And this is a very important skill, but it’s hard to develop that skill when you only apply it to your original thinking. Because, think of it like 2 pedals on the bike. When one is up, the other is down. It’s hard to think that original thought, and also pair it with, how do I spell accommodate?

Dictation and copywork are effective ways to practice the mechanics of writing.

Julie Bogart: So dictation allows you to just unicycle for a bit, just really focus on the mechanics and get those embedded so that the hand is hooked up with the brain, and it becomes automatic.

Amazingly, when you use copy work and dictation, copying a passage from a work of literature or dictation, listening and transcribing it, when you use those practices regularly, those skills are learned almost in the same way learning to speak is, it’s almost like by osmosis.

I remember my daughter telling me, “I don’t remember learning how to do dialogue punctuation. It feels like I’ve always known how.”

That’s a little bit the experience when you use it regularly. And then those skills just borrow themselves right over into your self-expressive writing.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, no, thank you. And you can use pretty entertaining texts.

Julie Bogart: Oh, you can!

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Which, I think, is important to remember.

Julie Bogart: A 100%. I mean, I think it’s great to let kids pick their passages.

I like to pick some, because sometimes I’m trying to target like a specific spelling or a specific punctuation use. And I want my kids to practice it. But then I also was like, all right, pick any passage out of Harry Potter. Or Oh, you want the refrigerator magnet? Great! Let’s do that one, you know, just like that.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, thank you. I love that.

Tips for Teaching Writing in the Age of AI

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: What are your top tips for parents and teachers? You’ve talked about AI a little bit. So it’s here, it’s here to stay. And if we’re trying to balance traditional writing skills with the role of technology, because I actually think, and I think you would agree, it is important to learn how to use them as a tool, correctly.

Julie Bogart: Definitely, yes.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: What are your top tips for trying to balance, you know? Develop your own writing, use this as a tool to assist. How would you recommend going about that.

Julie Bogart: So certainly when kids are young, I want them self-expressing. They don’t need to use AI when they’re under 10, right? Like, they’re barely out of the gate talking. Let’s let them talk, and you transcribe.

There are valid uses of AI.

Julie Bogart: And, I mean, there may be a use for AI that you explore, like, you want to learn more about the hummingbird, and you get a better output from AI than you do from Google.

I’m not saying not to use it that way. But, for writing itself, let’s hold off on rushing into those tools.

That said, by the time your student is in junior high, high school, college, they are ubiquitously used.

And part of the reason they have such wide appeal is because of these awful writing conditions they grew up in. They’re trying to get the A. And they’re like, well, if I don’t know what’s in the mind of my teacher, and I don’t know how to get those words out of her brain onto my screen. Then maybe AI knows, and that’s a lot easier. Doesn’t require as much work.

Now, AI creates hallucinations, like, by the millions every day, so it won’t necessarily be accurate, but it will sound fluent, and to somebody who’s struggling to write that feels relieving.

Don’t let AI replace self-expression.

Julie Bogart: So what we really want to do is, first, teach our kids to value that their thoughts have value, that they get comfortable, expressing those in writing.

And then when we use AI, we use it for specific tasks. And here are some of the tasks I feel are useful, and ways I even use AI today:

I use AI to help me write the subject line of an email, because it has access to millions of subject lines. And even though I could probably think my way there, eventually, to one that I’m happy with, it will give me 6 to choose from, and I can get it done in a moment. And that’s time efficiency in my work.

Where I won’t use it is to write a chapter of a book. Not going to do that. The chapter is going to reflect what I want to say. It’s going to reflect it in the way I want to say it.

Reasonable ways to use AI in writing.

So when we’re talking with our kids, we want to talk about how they use AI. Is it a research partner? Is it a, you know, give me a couple of quotes that are really well known in Jane Eyre?

That’s not… that’s great. Don’t worry about that. People used to use CliffsNotes, and SparkNotes for that, right?

But comment on those quotes yourself, right? If you’re asking, you know, I know the quote, but I don’t know where it is in Jane Eyre? It’ll tell you. It’ll tell you which chapter and what context. Those can be amazingly helpful.

You can also ask it to make things funnier.

You can use it for writing letters of recommendation. I have a friend who’s a nurse, and he had to write a letter of recommendation to Med school, very nervous about writing, and he supplied all the information, and it wrote a beautiful letter. Those are great uses of AI.

Hopefully, AI will push us to reform the way we teach.

Julie Bogart: When we’re talking about learning and education, however, what I’m really hoping is that we will reform education completely. That the essay will not be quite so important, and that we will incorporate things like video and podcasting and alternative ways of expressing what we know. Because writing is, absolutely, going to be, on some level, cannibalized by this large language model. In its sort of traditional format.

But we’re all writers. In fact, I like to say, more children today are writing than in the history of the world, because of the Internet. The day that the doors flew open, kids are like LiveRournal. Myspace.Twitter. Now they’re on TikTok. Podcasting. Youtube. Those are all writing venues. They’re just not on paper.

They’re creating expression. And they are actually weighing in on very serious matters in a lot of cases, doing astounding research, that’s all the essay was meant to produce.

So why are we camping on this hill that the expository essay is the most important form of self-expression. It’s just not, I mean, when was the last time you read one of those essays? College, you know. We don’t read them for pleasure, or even learning. So it’s a pretty dead format.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: No, I agree that my hope is it will push us to develop, you know, in the education world, to develop as better writing teachers, and to be more thoughtful about what assignments we create and why absolutely.

How to Use AI in Teaching

Julie Bogart: Agreeing, agreeing. In fact, Kelly Cohen, who I interviewed for my book, Dr. Kelly Cohen, runs the AI Biolab at University of Cincinnati. He gave his students an assignment. You know they’re learning how to build these AIs.

And he gave his students an assignment to investigate their values around responsible and ethical uses of AI. And he said they could use AI even to build it, large language models, but it, first had to be accurate, and, secondly, it had to be compelling.

Real Life Assignments

So what he asked them to do is produce films, short films and upload them to Youtube. And let’s just see who gets the most views

And, oh my gosh! The whole class was so into it! Every single student did it. The ones that I watched were riveting. They were funny. They use memes. They had good writing. They had really interesting, like, thoughtful philosophical points to make. And one of them won, and it had, like, I don’t know 50,000 views or something. And like better than a grade like, yeah, that’s learning that is actually taking advantage of the complex skills that today’s generation of students have. Instead of forcing them back into like 19 fifties, thinking.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: No, I that’s fantastic. And I think you mentioned in the book, turns out they care more about Youtube views and likes than grades, which is, of course they do, because.

Julie Bogart: Of course! It’s real.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: But yeah, it lasts. It means that they’re having an impact, which is actually what our young people, children, you know, all of us want have an impact. So…

Julie Bogart: That’s right.

Why Leading a Full Life Makes Better Writers

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: That leads really well into, you know, you talk about how leading a full life makes someone a better writer, which I thought was a really good insight. And can you explain this connection, and how parents can foster rich experience that translate to writing on a page.

Julie Bogart: Oh, my gosh! That’s such a great question. I feel so happy that you read my book so well. It really means a lot to me.

You can’t write from a poverty of experience or research.

And so one of the rules I taught my kids was, whenever you have writer’s block. It means you need to go do something. You either need an activity, a break, more research.

If it’s at all possible, It’s really good to get very deep in one sort of vocabulary field, whether that’s acting or gardening, or skiing, or playing a sport. Because that’s where the richness of analogies come from. That’s where we find, like the mirroring experiences that we can use to create surprise in writing.

And so, yes, having a rich life gives you access to more words, because every field has its own vocabulary, but also more levels of knowledge of the world that can be applied to anything. Right?

Living a rich life makes for rich writing.

So if you’re good at gardening. And now you’re writing about, let’s say, psychological development in children, this imagery, these dualities of growth are going to talk to each other in your imagination, and you’re going to find that your writing is more lively and more available to you because of it.

But yeah, if your child like, let’s say you read a paragraph about Pocahontas, and then the assignment is to write about Pocahontas.

Your child’s gonna be like they just used up all the good words, right?

But if you could go somewhere and see, like, native American like wares, you know, maybe at a museum. If you could watch a movie, even if it’s Disney, believe me, it helps.

If you could watch a movie, if you could read another narrative, if you could read poetry. those things will kind of amalgamate inside of you and inform your writing and help you enrich it.

Experiential Writing

Julie Bogart: Research is good, but it’s good to include, like these multiple ways of knowing, not just more information.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, I remember you talked about, you know, using having a child cook spaghetti so they can, were they? I think you were writing about making spaghetti here like, let’s go.

Julie Bogart: Totally.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: I think it was spaghetti. I’m not sure.

Julie Bogart: No, in absolutely was spaghetti. Like, you’re in a classroom. The teacher says we’re all going to write about, you know, spaghetti, and your child is like at a desk.

They can’t even remember the last time they ate spaghetti, and they’re worried about misspellings. So they’re going to say very simple sentences like, I love spaghetti. It tastes yummy. You know, it’s gonna be…

But if you’re at home, the way we were with homeschool, I would be like, well, let’s make spaghetti, and let’s take notes. You know. Oh, my gosh! What are the noodles feel like when they’re hard? Oh, the steam just steamed up my glasses when the boiling water, when we took them out. We threw them against the wall to see if they would stick. Oh, it’s ready to eat, right?

Don’t write from memory if you can write from life.

Like all of that could be in a paragraph about spaghetti, but we forget that when we’re like detached from the experience, and we have to recall it from memory.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah. And I mean, if you’re a very lucky teacher, maybe you would be allowed to cook spaghetti. But I have had some of my, I’ve seen teachers say, bring in photos, which is, you know, there are other things we can do that are helpful to trigger those sensory, you called it sensory writing, I believe. And I was like, Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. And then every child who’s watching the spaghetti or helping cook the spaghetti is going to have their own experience.

Julie Bogart: That’s right.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Whereas if you’re sitting at a desk and you have, like you said, you haven’t eaten spaghetti, you tend to go towards whatever the stereotypes around spaghetti are.

Julie Bogart: That’s right. And the way a teacher in a class can foster this activity. I write about it actually, in my curriculum called “keen observation of an item”.

You can bring items to the classroom and have them keenly observe that item and write about it right then.

Sensory Writing

Julie Bogart: I give, I don’t know, it’s like 50 or 60 questions that go through the 5 senses. Things like, look at it from above, look at it from below, look at it in the shadow. Compare it to Crayola color names. Rub it on your cheek, rub it on your arm, lick it, you know, like all the things kids love to do, right? Sniff it, you know. Is it an aroma? Is it a fragrance? Is it an odor? Like, helping them actually generate the vocabulary through their own direct experience creates better writing.

And, unfortunately, adults are so used to abstraction. We think that kids can do that same kind of “look in your memory”.

But I’ll tell you the truth. Adults aren’t good at it, either.

Recall is not a good source for writing. You’ve got to have, like, the things around you, or an immediate experience, or notes from an experience to really make that writing pop to life.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yes, I love that.

Personal Growth Through Writing

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: So beyond academic success. We do all this work to become writers, and hopefully, your kid is successful in school, goes, achieves their life goals.

What personal growth have you seen in children and adults who become more comfortable with writing.

Julie Bogart: Well, there was a really hilarious TikTok trend last year of young wives being angry to find out that their husbands used ChatGPT to write their vows. Okay?

So I think one of the personal, valuable skills of feeling comfortable writing is that, in the most meaningful moments. Writing a card to somebody for their birthday or graduation. Your wedding vows. Writing a eulogy for someone you loved who died. Expressing your own ideas back to yourself in a journal.

Writing as a Legacy

Julie Bogart: That. That is what we want to give our children as a legacy when they learn to be writers. That they have the self-confidence to represent their truest, most honest, most beautiful ideas in their own writing, to share with people who will treasure them.

So, for me, that would be the first outcome that I really long for with our students, is that they would know that they have a right to write, and that no one can take that from them.

But then, beyond that, writing itself is so life giving. We are communicators at a fundamental level. We read writing for entertainment, for information, for a sense of belonging in the world, for our spirituality.

And so, being a part of that ocean of language is also a gift to us, that we get to contribute our thoughts to this ongoing great conversation that spans the generations and the centuries.

That is the greatest gift writing has given to us,

Socrates Worried Writing would Destroy Civilization

Julie Bogart: You know, back when Socrates was hanging out, he was mad.

He thought writing was going to destroy civilization. He’s like, we won’t be as good of thinkers if things are written down. We won’t be able to memorize.

And, on some level, we lost a little of those skills, perhaps.

But we would have to all agree that writing is the reason we have the world we have today. The record keeping, the ability to think through, process, and share with everyone.

And so writing is pretty much the foundation of being an educated person, in my view. And it’s a gift to be able to do it and feel good about it.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, I completely agree.

Final Thoughts on Writing

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Well, thank you. These. This has been amazing. You’ve answered all my questions. Is there any? Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to leave us with. That’s a pretty good one, but.

Julie Bogart: I mean. Thank you for having me. I feel passionate about this, because my great writing heroes have died. My favorite mentor died just a few months ago, and then my mother, who’s the author of 70 books. She died in January.

And so, when I released this book, I really felt like the baton was being passed, and that’s what I want to do. I want to take all the accumulated knowledge and insights that I’ve had over my lifetime, and pass that baton directly to parents of kids in school and at home so that they feel confident to raise writers.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer: Yeah, no, thank you. I think you’ve done a great job with that. I really do recommend your book. I think it could help anyone. I mean teachers, parents, homeschooling parents, not homeschooling parents. I think you’ve created a very valuable resource. So thank you for being here, and thanks for your time and your insights.

Julie Bogart: Thank you, MaryAnne.

MaryAnne Kochenderfer

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MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.