By Devon. More Than Words is having the Brandeis Slam Team for our open mic night. What is slam poetry? It is one of the most virtal and energetic types of poetry there is. Slam poetry is strong, with rhythm! An actual Slam is like a battle between one another or two teams competing against each with the poetry they have written . So stop by More Than Words Friday March 19th - 8pm - to witness the Brandeis Slam Team. Check out our events page for more info.

National Grammar Day? lol... Today is National Grammar Day so march forth on March 4 to speak well, write well, and help others do the same*! Grammar has changed a lot over the years from old English to slang text messaging. The question is now why? Well my opinion is in the 1400s and 1500s people use to use big complicated words and lots of them because authors got paid by word so they just blabbered every word they can think of. Now people are always busy and on the move, so when you write something like a text message you just want to get the point across with the person understanding what you are saying in the least amount of letters. Sometimes this quick and unclear new form of writing can be confusing to the reader if they dont know what your intent is. Therefore grammar is importan...

My name is Vince and a few weeks ago I met with a professor from Brandeis that assisted in the process of completing my college essay. Her name was Professor Tetrault and brought forth a lot of her own experiences to aid me. The colleges look at every detail in an essay and the edge I had by having Professor Terault to lend me helped me to work out the kinks to make a clear and effective essay. My advice to those who are taking part in the college process is to always seek help or guidance from someone who has a good understanding of what needs to be done so that you get a feel of what is happening. The essay is a big part of the whole process, it gives the colleges an understanding of a lot of qualities and attributes you are going to bring to their college. It is always good to have id...

March Madness, By Jesie. Well as most of us know March is upon us and yeah, St. Patrick’s Day, but me as a sports fan it’s time for March Madness!  This brings up a good book that became a movie: Glory Road - which is a great & inspiring basketball story about Texas Western Miners in the year of 1966, changing African American athletes forever. Glory Road is the true story about how the Texas Western Miners got a bunch of great African American basketball players, but due to racial problems coach Don Haskin has some second thoughts about even playing his African American players, even though they dominated the court when they stepped on.  All and all they make it to the NCAA final four but ended up losing 67-69 and UC went on to the finals. I liked this book bec...

As the host of the event, and on behalf of More Than Words, we are proud to welcome back Ms. Anita Diamant on this coming Sunday, the 21st of February! She will be answering questions composed by our own youth, and asked by you, our proud customers, reading a segment from her newest book, Day After Night, and signing books for anyone who has a copy, or buys one from our store! The event begins at 3pm and lasts until 5! Come sit, chat with Anita, and enjoy our fabulous café treats!!

Hi my name is Jesie, I am a partner at MTW and today’s topic is "Kindle." After researching about kindle I found out that not only do you have to pay $300 for the device but every book that you download is at least $9.99. Why should we have to pay for the device and still get additional fees for the books we download? I can easily download as many songs as I want to my iPod for free! In addition, the memory space is low - only holds about 200 books, and a book shelf can hold a lot more. Nowadays people don’t even have to leave there house for anything: food gets delivered, TV and movies can be watched online, and now you don’t even have to leave your house to get a book! Personally, I say get out and get some fresh air.

Third Time's a Charm! By Kirk, Hi, my name is Kirk and I am a trainee at More Than Words. I have attempted to become an associate two times before but this time around I have confidence that I will make it though. MTW really helps you set up your life and helps you create goals and achieve them. Now being here for a full month I feel like I am making a big difference in my future by getting my life essentials such as getting my Massachusetts I.D and opening a bank account. Also MTW transitions shifts have a new set up which I really enjoy called affinity groups. Affinity groups allow me to work with youths on the same level as me in education which is very helpful. I look forward to becoming an associate so I can further my self efficacy on transitions!

A Day with TFA, By Francis Over the weekend we had a Teach For America event, which was an awesome experience. The TFA alums came to enjoy coffee, tea, read books and volunteer their time which was very helpful to our store. They also made a lot of book donations to help move our business forward. They even helped out with some of the regular MTW operations, such as pre scanning and managed sections. We really enjoyed having the alums to teach them more about what More Than Words really is. Everyone was energetic and willing to help - it made the day go by smoothly, and was a lot of fun!

Employee of the Month Dinner By Edwin Being employee of the month requires hard work but the reward is worth it in the end. Being able to pick any restaurant for a dinner is a big perk. I’m excited and have a lot of options in mind. Earning employee of the month means you have had good punctuality and attendance, worked hard with a positive attitude which I am proud to be acknowledged for it. I’m going with a group of youth from More Than Words that also won the award and I’m looking forward to going to an all-American restaurant and enjoying sirloin steaks and burgers.

Michael Jackson's More Than Words Resurrection By Reynaldo A. Rodriguez, stage name "Michael JUDGM3NT Jackson" Starting as a Trainee here at More Than Words a year ago wasn’t that bad; I got to learn a lot of new things right from the beginning. I always came to work on time, was ready to work, and, to be honest, kind of childish because I was new to the team. But I continued to grow with both my behavior and professional skills. From then to now, as a Senior Partner, I’ve made a lot of new good friends and, at the same time, learned a whole lot more about the King Of Pop (the one and only Michael Jackson). Almost everybody at More Than words calls me Michael Jackson not because I like his music; I can dance like him, sings like him and talk like him. Not to me...

--The True Heart of More Than Words--My name is Heather, and I have had the honor of being a part of the More Than Words team for almost 5 months now. I have completed my training, and am due for a performance review very soon. However, I am very distractable and often need to be refocused because, as a singer, I find it difficult to go through my day without randomly emitting a tune. I hum, whistle, or sing whenever I can, and often don’t realize I am doing it until I am asked to refocus on the task at hand. In fact, I am so musically minded that I feel most at home at More Than Words Open Mic nights. Performers from all over Boston come to our store to read or recite their poetry, prose and essays, sing songs, rap, and even perform comedy routines. I perform at every Open Mic, and ...

I have never heard of e-books until reading about Kindle. It is so simple to buy books on Kindle: just press a button to take you to Amazon’s store, type in a title or author, and press buy. Many people find e-books more helpful because of its convenience and it takes little time to get your favorite books for $9.99 or less. There are about 240,000 titles available for on Kindle. The only negative about it is that you can only buy books from Amazon’s store. Also, when you’re done with a book you will not be able to sell or trade it. According to company stats when people buy a book on Kindle, they keep buying the same number of physical books as they did before. They buy nearly twice as many e-books as paper books. When you buy a book, you can share it with a friend freel...

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal called Good News in the Daily Grind states that coffee has some surprising health benefits. Most people think coffee as a energy boost or a fast way to wake up, but what if there was a way coffee could help you with a health problem you may face one day in life? You would think a person who drinks zero cups a day would be healthier then the person who drinks five cups a day, but studies show the different amounts of coffee one may drink will have different health benefits - for example averaging three cups a day can lower your risk of Type 2 Diabetes by 25%. So stop on by More Than Words Bookstore and Cafe to get some freshly Starbuck's brewed hot or cold coffee and toss your health risk out the window!

Hi my name is Charissa, and I am an associate at More Than Words.  To be cafe trained is one of the most exciting and excellent experiences you can have while working at MTW.  It is excellent because you get the chance to interact with customers, and work up on the storefront for an entire shift.  I slowly went through a process of training with some of my youth teammates - Heather and Phillip.  During training I was surprised to learn how simple brewing coffee actually is, and also how fast our cookies bake.  I also love counting out money in the register because it gives me time to practice working with change. Today was my first time being independent in the cafe, and it went great!  I made three drinks for customers: a small coffee with cream, a large moc...

Hi, my name is Jesie, and I thought I’d start our blog off just by sharing with you my favorite things about More Than Words. I started working at MTW four months ago, and I have really enjoyed the ups and downs of maintaining a good and steady job. I have taken away a lot from the transitions shifts, because our transitions (case) managers really help us stay on track and set the bar high for ourselves so we can be held accountable. On the business side, I’ve just finished training in the café, and I’ve learned a lot about marketing and customer service. The business meetings we hold once a week with the entire staff team is great because we learn how to work as a team to figure out how we can improve the business. At MTW we have to have some type of education plan, which at first, I have...

More Than Words is a place we learn job skills for running a business and other professional skills to take forward into our next jobs. Through our blog we would like to show what we do and how we do it, and connect to other youth and prospective employees, customers and volunteers. Since our blog is written by the youth, it will give our readers an insight of what it is like to work at MTW.   More Than Words is a unique bookstore and café that helps youth take charge of their life by taking charge of a business. Working at More Than Words can be a very difficult but worthwhile opportunity to learn through an outstanding job training, punctuality and attendance expectations.  In this youth blog we will talk about our experiences here at MTW, what it’s like to m...

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