Commemorative stamps are issued by the U. S. Postal Service to remember or celebrate important events, people, and places of the nation. Take a look at the example on the next page of a stamp commemorating the two-hundredth anniversary of the United States Military Academy.

The next of our major project of the semester involves creating four “electronic stamps” celebrating the history of your particular colony. All stamps must depict people, places, or events that occur between the years 1609 (the settlement of Jamestown) and 1775 (before the Declaration of Independence.)Your final product will include:

1. A series of four stamps depicting:
   
   • an important person in your colony’s history the Native Americans who populated your colony
     
   • an important event in your colony’s history
     
   • a stamp depicting a person, place, or event of your choice
     
   • Each stamp will be accompanied with a well-written, well-developed paragraph explaining history behind the people and
     events depicted on the stamp. The descriptions should include citations.
     
• A complete bibliography of all sources used.

1. All of the information regarding this project has been compiled into this project folder. You are responsible for keeping this folder, maintaining it in a reasonable condition, bringing it to all classes during this project, and returning it with your final project inside. All papers and notes related to this project should be contained in this folder. At the same time, Latin homework, math quizzes, and science quizzes should not find their way into this folder. If you lose the folder, you will be responsible for replacing it
2. Conduct library research into the history of your particular colony. In addition to gaining a broad understanding of the history of your colony, you should develop your four independent paragraphs (not a paper or essay) that describe the stamps that you will create. You must pull research from at least three different sources, two of which must be in book form (books, encyclopedia articles, magazines). At the end of the third day in the library, source sheets and notes are due.
   Source Sheet and Notes Due:
   
   • Wednesday, April 17, 2002 (7H)
     
   • Thursday, April 18 (7C and 7B)
     
3. Now, just like we did in our Renaissance “Great People” Projects, you need to take your source sheet and turn it into a bibliography. Type this assignment, and save it so that you can make any needed changes or print out a clean copy for the final product. Remember to use the worksheet provided as a guide and be very careful with punctuation. Now that we’ve done this before, bibliographies will be checked even more carefully.
   
   • Bibliographies are due: Wednesday, April 24, 2002
     
   • Corrected bibliographies are due with the final product on
4. Thursday, May 16, 2002.
   On four plain white sheets of paper, rough out (in pencil) what you think your stamps will look like. These do not need to be colored in and are not works of art, but rather are general sketches to help you write your paragraphs. Write four one-paragraph descriptions of the stamps, including the relevant historical background information. All sources must be correctly cited using parenthetical references. Each paragraph should be submitted on a separate sheet of paper and should be no longer than one page, double-spaced.
   Sketches and paragraphs (in final form) are due on Friday, April 26, 2002.
   Paragraphs must be submitted in paper form AND emailed to me in the body of an email (lohara@germantownacademy.org) BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF CLASS on 4/26.
   
5. Creating the stamps - We will be spending four days with Mrs. Siwinski learning how to use Fireworks to create our electronic stamps.
6. As a homework assignment you will e-mail the documents to your account at school, and then you will copy and paste them into their portfolios for posting to the web. You will also make a cover for your portfolio using the Fireworks application.
7. After logging into the GA Filer area of your server account, go into Curricular Projects, then the Colonial Stamps folder and your period. Now make a folder with your name. In here you will save your work. Make sure all documents that you emailed to yourself are saved in this folder.
8. You will spend four class periods working in the MSCALC. You will create your stamps using Macromedia Fireworks and you will create your web pages to post your stamps using Adobe PageMill.
9. After a brief introduction to Fireworks, following the step by step instructions, you will create your stamps using the "Text" tool and the "drawing" tools available in Fireworks.
10. You are to enhance your text using the stroke, fill end effects options. They can incorporate illustrations from the 525,000 graphics available from the"Art Explosion" CDs or download online graphics from free clip art sites such as http://www.artoday.com.
11. You will remember to save your work in two formats: the PNG format, so that you can alter your work if correction is needed, and in the GIF format to be placed on their web page. These should all be saved to your folder in GA Filer.
12. Once the stamps are completed you will open Page Mill, and following the step by step instructions furnished, you will make a page to hold each stamp. Saving each page in the GA Filer folder you made to hold all your work.
13. Now place the stamps on the page, and make a links back to the student index page and to the next stamp page.
14. Remember you will need a separate page for each stamp.
15. You may also enhance your page with color in the background, fancy titles made in Fireworks and buttons for navigation, etc.
16. When you final fraft of your descriptions are finished and saved in the GA Filer folder you may copy and paste the words onto each stamp page under the stamp graphic.
17. Final product is due on Thursday, May 16, 2002. The final product should include all of the following items:
    
    • On the left side of the folder:
      
    • the final print out of your stamps
      
    • revised and edited copies of the four description paragraphs
      
    • revised and edited copy of the bibliography
      
    • ************Project rubric************
      
    • On the right side of your folder:
      
    • the rough sketches of your stamps
      
    • first draft of the four description paragraphs
      
    • the original copy of the bibliography

1. On the left side of the folder:
   • the final print out of your stamps               
   • revised and edited copies of the four description paragraphs
   • revised and edited copy of the bibliography
   • ************Project rubric
2. On the right side of your folder:
   • the rough sketches of your stamps
   • first draft of the four description paragraphs
   • the original copy of the bibliography

This project designed and implemented by Lynne O'Hara, teacher of history, Germantown Academy Middle School. Technical support and web page design furnished by Carol Siwinski, Currciular Technology Specialist.

April, 2002