How to Create a Custom Writing Prompt in Book Taco

Book Taco comes with a library of default writing prompts, but you can also write your own. Custom prompts appear alongside the default ones in the student's prompt list — with your prompts shown first. You can enable or disable each prompt individually, edit the text at any time, and delete ones you no longer need.

Step 1: Go to Writing Prompts

• In the left sidebar, click Writing Prompts.
• Click Add custom prompt in the top-right corner of the page.

Step 2: Create a custom prompt

• Fill in the two fields on the Custom Writing Promptform:
  • Your Writing Prompt — the prompt text that students will read and respond to.
  • Book Category — choose Fiction or Nonfiction. This determines which category filter the prompt appears under on the student's prompt list.
• Click Save. The prompt is added to your My Custom Prompts tab and is enabled for students by default.

Your prompts appear first. On the student's Writing Prompt page, your custom prompts are listed before the default system prompts. If you want a specific topic to stand out, create it as a custom prompt.

Step 3: Enable or disable a prompt

• Go to the My Custom Prompts tab on the Writing Prompts page.
• Each prompt card has an Enable for students toggle showing ON or OFF.
• Click the toggle to switch it. Prompts set to OFF are hidden from students immediately — they will not appear in the student's prompt list until you turn them back on.

The same toggle exists for default prompts. Switch to the Default Prompts tab to enable or disable the system-provided prompts the same way. You can also control default prompts per Fiction and Nonfiction sub-tabs.

Step 4: Edit or delete a prompt

• On the My Custom Promptstab, each prompt card has two action buttons:
  • Edit — opens the same form you used to create the prompt. Change the text or category and click Save.
  • Delete — opens a confirmation dialog. Click Delete to permanently remove the prompt. This action cannot be undone.

Q: If I delete a prompt, what happens to students who already submitted a response using it? 
A: Existing submissions are not affected. The student's response and its grading history remain intact. Only new students will no longer see the deleted prompt.

Q: Can I reorder my custom prompts? 
A: Yes. On the My Custom Prompts tab, you can drag and drop the prompt cards to change the order in which they appear for students.