Creative Reading & Writing Resources For Teaching English

Getting Back To Teaching Creative Reading & Writing

Due to the arrival of my daughter 2 years ago, and the Pandemic, my regular English language teaching practice all but disappeared. It’s only been since the beginning of the year that I have started back again, but only with one private student at a time. Usually, I am asked to design learning experiences for exam preparation or academic English. However, I try to integrate storytelling and creative writing into my lessons when I can. So with the prospect of new younger learners on my books soon, I thought it would be good to sort out some exciting creative reading and writing resources to play with.

Online Creative Writing Resources

Dave Birss’ website seems to be a goldmine of creative activities, including Story Dice, Creative Writing Ideas and Drawing Prompts. All free, easy to access and requires zero prep. If you like watching/playing videos in class, try Brian Tolentino’s Tolentino Teaching videos, such as the One Minute Stories or What If..? (He also has some grammar and academic content, if you are interested in that.) Also, The New York Times has a great page on Picture Prompts and gives detailed instructions on how to use the images to inspire a short story. And Once Upon A Picture also host images to inspire creative writing.

Online Creative Reading Resources

In terms of reading, IATEFL Literature SIG (Special Interest Group) blog is all about ELT teaching and research in the fields of literature, extensive reading and the arts for English language learners (although I don’t think it has been updated since the arrival of COVID-19). While the Extensive Reading Foundation has great content, including a list of free online books for your students. Storynory hosts free text and audio stories for younger learners. And Readworks offer passages for reading comprehension with a special collection for ELLs. Finally, SYSWC community member Irina Skibenko has written and published a beautiful-looking set of story books for pre-teens, which come with cards, stickers, activities and worksheets to keep your learners occupied. I hope to buy copies soon and will share my reflections soon.

Your Resources

What materials do you use? Any favourites? Email me at shareyourstorywithconfidence@gmail.com and I’ll add them to this post!

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