Reading and Writing Skill Development

One way that I like to teach reading and writing skills is to assign ESL students (or really any student type - children, teens, post-secondary learners) different readings so that they can learn to write in that category genre. 

There’s a variety of writing categories and genres that are part of them. Fiction as a category breaks down into short stories/flash fiction, novels/novellas, plays, comics/graphic novels, and poems (I may have missed something, but let’s say those are the main types). For each category, there is a genre. Here’s a non-exhaustive list: folklore, historical, coming of age, thriller, action/adventure, comedy, crime and mystery, fantasy, illustrated fiction, sci fi, horror, and romance. I challenge students to read in all categories and genres and to write in them as well. Poetry also breaks down into different kinds such as sonnet, free verse, haiku, etc.  

Non-fiction breaks down into categories like the following: journalistic writing, advertising, essays, recipes, biography, reference works, self-help, travel, academic writing, and others. Within each of the categories, variety in genre can be found (academic writing can be in the form of a research paper or a report on a subject whether it be scientific or cultural). Journalistic writing can be political or about current events, and so forth. 

Students who want to learn to improve their writing skills in this way will be introduced to different kinds of texts and challenged to produce their own to get a sense of the challenges built into creative writing.