This part of the activity will allow students to think about an individual who inspires them or serves as a role model. Using the My Heroes profile worksheet, students will collect a picture and information about their own heroes to share with their classmates.

To prepare for this activity:

1. Think ahead of time about how you want to frame the project. Do you want your students to pick Jewish role models? Do you want to focus on specific values or actions? Instead of asking students to choose anyone throughout all of history for this project, you may want to choose:
   1. Biblical figures (could be characters from their parsha or haftorah)
   2. Historical figures
   3. Celebrities
   4. Family and community members
2. Decide on a timeline for your students’ projects. Make sure that you discuss deadlines with them, especially if they will be writing the profile at home or over a long period of time.
3. Decide where and how students will research their heroes. Is there a school library or public library accessible to students during class time? Will students be expected to do research at home on the Internet?
4. Students should come to class knowing who they will profile for their project.

Activity Plan

1. Have the students complete any necessary research on their heroes. You may want to plan a trip to the school or local library, check out some research resources to use in your classroom, do Internet research in a computer lab, or have the students complete the research at home.
2. Using the profile as a guideline, students write about their heroes. Students can print out or draw a picture for the profile.
3. When all of the profiles are complete, hang them up around the room and have each student present their hero to the class.

Extend the activity

1. As homework, ask kids to find a hero in the news or in their day-to-day lives. They can either bring in an article or write a paragraph about what they saw and bring it into the class. You could also make a “mitzvah tracker” board in your class where kids can post short 3-sentence anecdotes on note cards when they see people in the classroom, school, community, etc. doing good deeds for others.
2. Hang the heroes’ profiles up around the room and give students time to browse each one.
   1. Each profile should have an empty piece of paper or empty wall space next to it.
   2. Give each student 3 stickers or sticky notes and ask them to choose one profile for each statement:
      1. I’d vote for this person for president.
      2. I’d want this person to be my teacher.
      3. I want this person to be my friend.
   3. Are there some heroes many students chose for president, teacher, or friend? Why do you think these people stood out?
   4. What did you look for in a presidential candidate? How is that different from what you look for in a friend or in a teacher?
3. After everyone has chosen, see if there are patterns.