Abstract

Few teachers of English as a foreign language are interested in using literature in writing lessons. However, if chosen carefully, literature can be a powerful tool and valuable input of authentic language for learning to write. This article aims to describe how two unabridged and unleveled literary works can be suitable for teaching writing to secondary school students. To this end, an exploratory pre-experimental intervention was conducted over one school year with 147 14-year-old students. Data was collected before and after working with the novels, and three writing tests were administered before and after the intervention to assess the effectiveness of literature on students’ writing skills. The results confirm the hypothesis that the use of literature improves students’ writing skills in secondary schools. Practical implications for the integration of literature in EFL and foreign language teaching are discussed.