Performing writing activities daily increases literacy and fluency in ESL students. Writing activities can be used for any subject, and allow students to practice basic grammar skills while at the same time encouraging creativity and independent thinking. Interesting and imaginative writing activities catch the attention of students, increasing their interest in learning English.

Practical Activities
Ask your first-grader to help design a menu in English, either based on the food she eats at home or a pretend restaurant menu. Help the student with more difficult words, but allow her to describe each dish as well as she can. Encourage your first-grader to write letters to grandparents or other relatives in English. If the relative speaks English, even better. If not, letters can be translated back to the student's native language in a secondary activity.

Creative Activities
Cut a few photographs of people out of a magazine or newspaper. Include as much of the background as possible. Have your first-grader write, in English, a biography or sequence of events based on the photographs, using as many descriptive words as possible. "Ideas in a jar" is another fun activity. Place strips of paper in a jar, each displaying an adjective, noun, or verb. Have your student pull 1 to 3 strips of paper from the jar and write a sentence or paragraph based on the words selected.

Journal Activities
Allow students to write, in English, a daily journal. Possible topics include ideas, thoughts, emotions, or art expression; it could also be focused on just one subject, such as current events, history, mathematics, or science. Choose one journal topic at a time to avoid confusion. Journals should be written entirely in English. If a student does not know a certain word, encourage him to use other words to describe it, or to draw a picture to represent it.

Media Related Activities
Have your first-grader write a paragraph in English about an event, either in the community or around the house, as if it were a newspaper story. You can include a picture as well for added inspiration. Have your ESL students read a newspaper article or movie review in English, then have your student write a "review," also in English, about a book or movie introduced in class, and ask him to include whether or not he enjoyed it, what he did or did not enjoy about it, and if he would recommend seeing it to a friend or family member.

Artistic Activities
Ask your first-grader to create a picture story book by writing a short story in English, then drawing out a picture for each paragraph of the story. The pictures will help students to explain concepts they do not know the words for, and grant you, the teacher, knowledge of lessons that should be addressed. Have your students create a comic in English, emphasizing dialog. Have your first-graders take a series of photographs, or hand out photographs of your own, and ask them to write a paragraph to describe the events portrayed in the photographs.

Active Activities
Ask your student to write a short play, in English, about an activity, event, or book. Perform a puppet show or short play based on the student's script. Scavenger huts are also a lot of fun for young students. Separate the class into halves and ask each half to write a series of clues in English. Hide clues around the classroom, each clue leading to another, and the chain of clues ending at a treat or reward. Students will have to understand the clues in order to solve the puzzle.