Author Blurbs: Final Draft and Published Work

Here’s Ms. Stokien’s final draft:

Monica Ruth Edinger, a very interesting fourth grade teacher at the Dalton School, was born in North Carolina.  She moved around a lot because her father was a professor and taught in many different places.  She now lives on the Upper Westside of New York City with her new toy poodle pup, Lucy.  Monica is passionate about reading and writing, and she also is a runner.  Lucy sometimes runs with her!   Ms. Edinger attended Barnard College Columbia University .  After graduating, she spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone, Africa.   Monica ‘s family is from Germany and Monica is fluent in German.   She enjoys traveling abroad; this summer she went to Peru.  Monica also enjoys sweets, especially chocolate.   Her classroom is full of ladybugs for good luck.  “ After 25 years of teaching at Dalton, being with the fourth grade is still fantastic,” Monica says.

I like it!

Now this is what I’d like you to do:

• After writing your first draft, using information from your interview, read it over carefully.  Does it read well?  Is there a good leading sentence to make your readers want to know more about your subject?  Is everything of interest to your readers (or perhaps is some of it just interesting to you or your subject)?  Do you have enough interesting information?  Do you end the blurb with something interesting? (Perhaps you want to use a quote as Ms. Stokien did for mine.)

• Once you are done revising do your final proofreading.  As you did with your journal letter, check for spelling, sense, capitals, and punctuation.

• Show it to your subject to be sure he/she is comfortable and happy with your blurb.

• Now give it to a teacher who will do a final check.

• Make a final publishable copy on a large index card and put it, along with the photograph, on a piece of cardboard (first using tissue paper to decorate it). Make it unique, creative, and beautiful!