DRUJBA HIGH SCHOOL · SOFIA · 2014
Enough reading.
Let’s write.
Sixty stories by teenage English language learners. A classroom year that moved from reading and discussion to a published collection of students’ first stories in English.
A classroom publishing project edited by Osman Bedel.
01 / THE PROJECT
A real audience for first stories.
The contributors were teenage students at Drujba High School in Sofia, Bulgaria. During their first year studying English as a foreign language, they read simplified stories in reading circles, talked about them through six discussion roles, and wrote stories in English for the collection.
The collection brought those stories together in a book. Osman Bedel, their English teacher and the book’s editor, wrote in the introduction that he kept corrections largely to spelling and punctuation so the students’ individual voices remained audible.
02 / OUR WRITING JOURNEY
From reading circles
to a book.
The book’s introduction describes the classroom path behind the collection.
- 01
Read
Students read simplified, graded short stories in English during their first year of EFL study.
- 02
Discuss
Reading circles used six discussion tasks: summaries, vocabulary, questions, passages, connections, and cultural items.
- 03
Write
Students wrote their first stories in English for the collection.
- 04
Edit
The editor reports making mainly spelling and punctuation corrections while retaining the students’ wording and styles.
- 05
Publish
The stories became a 60-piece collection with a title, cover, contents, and individual author bylines.
The historical stages above come from the book’s introduction and contents; they are not presented as results of a separate research study.
03 / THE BOOK
Their first stories,
in their own book.
Enough Reading. Let’s Write. Our First Stories
- Full subtitle
- Short Stories from English Language Learners at Drujba High School
- Contributors
- Teenage EFL students at Drujba High School
- Editor
- Osman Bedel
- Place and year
- Sofia, 2014
- Edition
- Complete original book · 146-page PDF
04 / STUDENT STORIES
Find a story in the collection.
Browse the original table of contents by title or student author. Each entry opens the complete PDF in a new tab at that story’s starting page.
Titles, bylines, and page numbers follow the 2014 book. The stories themselves remain in the original PDF.
05 / FOR TEACHERS
Make room for
student authors.
The book shows what a real publication can make possible in an EFL classroom. These new planning tools help adapt the idea to another group.
Open printable resourcesProject planner
Set the reading, discussion, writing, and publication plan.
Story map
Help each student shape a setting, character, problem, and ending.
Peer feedback
Prompt thoughtful reading before the final edit.
Publication checklist
Track bylines, proofreading, page order, and cover preparation.