Moe's Cafe: 48 Decidedly Different Creative Writing Prompts

By Mark Henry Larson and Bob Boone

While driving with your friends or family some place far from home, your radiator starts steaming. You manage to find a gas station in a small town where they can fix your car, but it's going to take... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1596470887
• ISBN13: 9781596470880
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Good Year Books
• Length: 124 Pages
• Weight: 0.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 8.3" x 10.8"
• Age Range: 13 to 17 years
• Grade Range: Grades 8 to 12

Customer Reviews

Fantastic!

There are several things that are great about this book. First, it has various writing exercises that are perfect for teaching students how to start the creating process. It has reading suggestions for each writing exercise and a suggestion for a movie clip that would show how the writing can create an amazing scene. Then add that it aligns with the NCTE standards and it is truly the perfect book for a writing oriented classroom. Cannot offer enough praise.

Moe's Cafe' Is A Nice Stop For Teachers

This book contains a collection of 48 lessons created by the founder of the Young Chicago Authors organization, Bob Boone, and Mark Larson, a creative writing instructor at Northwestern University's Center for Talent Development. The activities use fun writing prompts, with the first lesson set in a fictional restaurant called "Moe's Café"where young writers can put anything on the menu that their imaginations conjure up, and push the limits with their descriptions of the regulars and wait staff. ("You ask him if there's any place to get a bite, and he points across the road to Moe's Café. You don't have much choice, so you head inside and take a seat at the first booth on the left and look around in horror at the filth" (page 4). The exercises reinforce and develop skills defined by the National Council of Teachers of English as appropriate for this age group. The book is valuable because the work students do in response to the series of provocative questions forces them to refine their skills in developing character, theme, setting and style. Some samples of the student work are included toward the end of the book. Bob Boone says at the beginning of"Moe's Café' that he himself successfully used the prompts in writing workshops all over the Chicago area. He came to use the teaching method after learning first that a more traditional exercise in description wasn't going to cut it. Each lesson also contains suggestions for short stories and film scenes that are closely connected to the story prompts. This book is great for the new or soon-to-be teacher who will no doubt be looking for lesson ideas.

Great Story Starters

My daughter couldn't put this book down after I gave it to her! We previewed a few pages before I bought it, and liked it from the beginning. The book encourages writers to really think through the prewriting phase, developing characters, setting, and plot before actually writing a story. Originally meant as a book used in our homeschooling, my daughter wants to use this book all on her own!