The My Hero Project is a free online website www.myhero.com devoted to kids' writing. It was formed by two women who were seeking ways in which their children could identify the true heroes in the world. Their website actively seeks writing by kids on their heroes and helps them identify the qualities of what it means to be a hero. They are particularly seeking writing by teenagers (or younger) in which students identify an unsung hero who often goes unrecognized. This could be someone in their neighborhood or in their family. The website is very user friendly and sets up a 5 paragraph template into which kids can type their work. When finished students may submit the work and it can then be read by anyone on the internet. In other words they will be published writers. There is also a section called
The visual gallery
which accepts drawings and photographs by students.
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· Identify what it means to be a hero
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· What makes a person have heroic qualities?
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· Who is someone you think is a hero?
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· Do you know anyone personally who is a hero?
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· Of the photographers we studied in this unit who do you think has heroic qualities?
Then each student should go to the computer lab and register onto the website. Using the five paragraph template, they will choose one photographer to write about as their hero and 2-3 examples of their work may be included as well. Once again I can't stress how user friendly this is. The registration process is easy, uploading photos is easy, and saving their work until later is easy. It makes a good project that when finished can be printed out and displayed. It also helps kids identify real heroes and help them move away from just the "rich and famous." .