Tell students that investigating history requires understanding the words and phrases people used in the past, as language changes over time. Popular words or phrases drop out of use and are replaced by others, technological developments lead to new products with new names, and bigoted terms from one era are often used less than in the next era. Tell students that they are going to create a glossary of words and phrases used in advertisements for runaway slaves in the Virginia Gazette in order to better understand slavery and freedom seeking in late-18th-century Virginia.

Divide the class into small groups and distribute one set of primary sources (A, B, or C) to each group. Groups should have access to at least one device to access the internet. Students should read their assigned primary sources together and identify three to five words or phrases they do not understand and think it would help to define in order to better understand slavery and freedom seeking in late-18th-century Virginia. Students should then use their internet-enabled device(s) to research the 18th-century meaning of the words/phrases and create a glossary of their chosen terms. Modification suggestion: Some student populations might benefit from the teacher preselecting a few terms for students to define. See the Vocab/Key Terms section for ideas.

After creating their glossaries, have students share some of their chosen terms and definitions with the class. Next, use some of the glossary terms to lead a class discussion of the following questions:

• How did creating a glossary help to understand the source? 
• How did defining glossary terms help reveal the skills, personalities, and choices of the freedom seeker? 
• Remember that the sources were written by enslavers; how did their point of view influence word choice and descriptions of freedom seekers?