English as a Second Language students benefit greatly from interactive writing activities. Writing provides ESL students a way to combine their speaking, listening and reading experiences into a creative expression of learning English. Beginner students, especially elementary students, need constant encouragement and guidance to improve their writing. Use short, incremental daily writing lessons to help ESL students learn English through writing activities.

Journal Writing
Provide each elementary ESL student a daily chance to write in their journal about a specific topic. ESL writing relies on being guided through the chore of expressing thoughts on paper, and daily journal prompts help students focus their writing. Students learn by example, so before allowing students to write in their journal, go over your own personal journal entry together as a class. This allows elementary students a chance to review vocabulary words and sentence structure basics to help them along. For example, if the daily journal prompts is "My Pet," write a brief autobiographical paragraph as an example for your class. Encourage creativity and originality and watch carefully for any copycats since many ESL students try to mimic exactly what the teacher does.

Picture Writing
If your elementary ESL students have difficulty summarizing, allow them first to draw a picture of what they are trying to summarize. Take a beloved story or book like "Cinderella" and have your students draw a picture after you read the story as a class. They can pick any scene they wish or a particular aspect of the story to draw. After a certain period of time, tell them to write about the story in their own words, using their picture for sentence ideas. Teach elementary students to include the place, time, characters and main events in their summaries and to include any other details they thought were interesting. For early elementary students, short summaries of three or four sentences are fine but expect students to write longer summaries from their pictures as they get more practice.

Classroom Mailbox
Set up a row of student mailboxes to encourage elementary ESL students to write to one another. Students can bring an empty, clean box from home to decorate with their name. Provide an assortment of envelopes or teach students how to make envelopes, using paper and tape. At first, require students to write a minimum number of letters a day. As they start receiving correspondence from their classmates, they will find it easier to write and respond. Encourage students to write about daily, everyday things to practice practical ESL topics. Students should also feel free to write the teacher, so use their correspondence as a way to teach better writing habits. Elementary students should learn proper letter-writing formats and learn to proofread their letters for grammar and spelling errors.