Abstract Instructors teaching writing in the EFL setting either choose to introduce the language necessary for writing (grammar, vocabulary, language use) or focus on the process of writing and attend to matters such as content and organization. In the former case, it seems that it is not really writing that is being taught, and in the latter, students are, in a sense, being hastily pushed into the deep end of the pool. The present study argues that by integrating literature into the writing syllabus, teachers can avoid both extremes and, at the same time, increase the motivation to write among learners. With this in mind, a number of 60 EFL learners were divided into two groups. In the experimental group, learners completed a task which included the reading and summarization of a short story, and in the control group, learners were simply asked to write a narrative on a proposed topic. The results reveal that tasks employing literature as content serve to improve the overall quality as well as the content, organization and language use of learners’ writing.

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