This study investigates the impact of structured reading lessons with short stories on the development of students' writing ability at Nigste Saba Preparatory School. This study took place during the second semester of the 2011 academic year. Sixty social science students of grade 11 participated in this study. Two teachers and two raters also participated in this study. The sixty students were divided into two groups: The experimental group received treatment ( structured reading lessons with short stories); whereas, the control group only read the story and answered comprehension questions without expJicit instruction of the story grammar, character maps, story maps, story frames and extended activities. TJ;Je results were analysed using the independent T-test samples and Mann­ Whitney U test. The results indicated that the students in the experimental group outperformed the students in the control group in their overall writing ability and in terms of the sub-skills of organization, vocabulary, grammar, and fluency. In addition, the quantitative data of students' views on the use of structured reading lessons in developing. their overall writing ability and its sub-skills VI ) Abstract . ~re elicited via semi-structured interviews. For the qualitative data, inductive thematic analysis was used and the important themes that emerged from the data interview were discussed. The findings · suggest that structured reading lessons help learning of English writing; hence emphasizing the \ importance of using literature to teach writing in English classA In addition, structured reading lessons contributed to familiarizing the students with the elements of the story and helped them increase awareness in their writing and positively affected their performance in the posttest. It also encouraged students to read and to use it in their writing since reading can be used to stimulate writing as a so;,rce of motivation. The researcher suggests that teachers of EFL should be aware that learners' writing ability should be regarded as one of the most significant tasks which students are required to develop throughout their teaching and learning process. Curriculum designers should also take into consideration the structured reading lessons in terms of its important function of encouraging the students to engage themselves in the writing proces