Literature has been repeatedly recognized as an effective source of authentic materials in EFL classrooms. Literature exposes learners to coherent and expert writing which can enable them to write better and facilitates students’ creative writing skills. The purpose of this study was to investigate the teaching procedures of using short fiction in a Korean high school EFL course in which English writing and reading skills are integrated and to provide pedagogical suggestions for using authentic literature in EFL classrooms. First, this paper introduces a theoretical discussion of the advantages of using short fiction in an English writing instruction, and discusses reasons for selecting the Korean short novel Dongbackkot and the English short story “Araby” as resources for writing. After that pedagogical steps with practical classroom activities are described. We hope that the pedagogical suggestions provided here may inspire English teachers to design their teaching materials using appropriate literary texts to improve their students’ English essay writing and balanced communication skills.

By examining two low-proficiency EFL students’ experiences of reading literature, and of writing about what they have read during a semester-long reading/writing course, we investigate literature’s place in EFL writing classes. We also observe whether using literature in EFL writing classes lead to successful synergies among LW (learning-to-write), WLL (writing-to-learn language), and WLC (writing-tolearn content). We adopt a case study methodology. The participants, Mia and Sun, are first-year students who attend a private university in Seoul. Both students favor the inclusion of literature in the reading-writing classroom. Mia experiences the literature-reading-writing connection mainly as language knowledge, with the strong appreciation for WLL perspective. By comparison, Sun concerns for LW dimensions of writing, together with the WLL perspective. This study provides evidence that literature-reading-writing connection serves as a vehicle not only for a rich reading experience but also for the synergistic learning of writing, content, and language.