Dear Reader,

Writing can be used to communicate ideas between people in many different ways from an informal text message to a peer-reviewed academic research paper. Each style of writing has its own unique features to express your ideas most clearly. Creative writing can be used to express your ideas but does require familiarity and practice with the unique features that make it so interesting to read. As you study creative writing, both reading and writing it, you will 1) improve your mastery of the English language using nuance and strategic grammar, 2) be able to read and write about creative genres more confidently and analytically, 3) learn more about and contribute to the culture of your second language, 4) and become a better writer. 

As you study in this textbook, you will have practice with reading, listening, speaking, and writing to develop your English skills in a well-rounded way. However, the main goal of this book is to help improve your writing, so this textbook will include more instruction and practice for writing. You will have practice in both receiving English and producing English to learn the English skills presented in this book. These skills include using literary devices, grammar, and genre-specific concepts in creative writing.

As an online, downloadable book, some of the practices in this textbook work best on computers such as exercises that require you to click a link, but some exercises work best on paper. You can download and print any page from this textbook as a pdf or you can write your answers to the exercises on your own piece of paper. Lines and blank spaces have been included in the online textbook to help you know how much you should write on your own paper. 

This book is designed to be studied in a classroom with a teacher to help guide you. Your teacher or class may decide to use all or part of this textbook depending on the needs of the classroom and the goals of the students. The sections do make the most sense when done in order, so it is suggested that you study U1, then U2, and so on. However, many of the units have independent information, so it is possible to study them in a different order.  There are learning objectives (goals) listed at the beginning of each unit. Instruction and practice for these objectives are included in the different sections of the units. They are repeated with gradually increasing difficulty to encourage you to learn a skill or knowledge deeply. The depth of your knowledge about a topic or your ability with the English skill being practiced will increase as you continue working through the sections. 

The sections included in each unit are as follows:

1. A reading section to provide meaningful written input. This section also includes information about specific techniques and tools that authors use in writing called literary devices. There are activities before, during, and after reading to give you an opportunity to learn more about these literary devices. 
2. A listening section to provide meaningfully spoken input. 
3. A genre-specific concept section with genre-specific terms (words) to provide you both the vocabulary to discuss creative literature you read and the ability to use those ideas to make your own creative writing
4. A grammar section for you to learn how to use syntax strategically as a writer. 
5. A section about the types of writing within a genre to give you a foundation of knowledge to be built upon. By learning the general types and writing expectations associated with those types, you will then be able to use them in your own unique ways to fit your personal creative style. 
6. A writing practice section to provide practice with simpler practice focused on the literary devices learned earlier in the unit. 
7. A speaking practice section to learn and practice reading, performing, or delivering creative writing pieces with tools to express more about the meaning of the pieces.
8. A section with more writing practice to practice the ideas you learned from the genre-specific section and other previous sections in more difficult exercises. The practice in this section is your opportunity to use what you have learned in longer pieces of writing. 
9. A unit assessment to test your understanding and ability to use the ideas taught in the previous sections, specifically the literary devices, genre concepts, grammar, and writing your own creative writing. These tests use questions from multiple levels of Bloom's Taxonomy to determine how deeply you know and how well you can use an English skill. Productive writing prompts are also featured in many assessments to determine your mastery of writing skills in action. 
10. An extend your learning section to practice what you've learned through projects and activities. These may be done individually, in groups, or as a class. There are also resources listed that you can explore on your own.