Lesson Plans
We encourage teachers, at all grade levels, to use these short and powerful ads in their classrooms. Whether you have adapted one of the lesson plans published on our site or created your own, we invite you to share your lesson plans with us.
LaMonique Adom, 3rd Grade Teacher
Abigail Henry, High School Teacher
K-3 Lessons and Activities
Creating a Memory Box with the Last Seen Archive
As a supplemental lesson for the Slavery/Emancipation Human Rights unit as well as our Social Emotional Learning unit, students will explore articles, posters, and stories from the Information Wanted archive and create a memory box in honor of those who were lost.
Lesson planGrades 4-5 Lessons and Activities
Graphic Organizer: Primary Source Analysis
Using this graphic organizer students can analyze any ad in the collection.
Lesson plan
Being an Historian: Primary Source Analysis
This lesson focuses on analyzing Information Wanted ads for what they reveal about enslaved people’s family separation and quest for reunification. Students will analyze ads and select text evidence to identify the impact of the Domestic Slave Trade on enslaved families.
Lesson plan
Creating a Memory Box with the Last Seen Archive
As a supplemental lesson for the Slavery/Emancipation Human Rights unit as well as our Social Emotional Learning unit, students will explore articles, posters, and stories from the Information Wanted archive and create a memory box in honor of those who were lost.
Lesson planGrades 6-8 Lessons and Activities
Thinking Like an Historian
This lesson focuses on analyzing an Information Wanted ad(s) for what it reveals about enslaved people’s family separation and quest for reunification.
Lesson plan Graphic Organizer: Primary Source Analysis
Using this graphic organizer students can analyze any ad in the collection.
Lesson plan Being an Historian: Primary Source Analysis
This lesson focuses on analyzing Information Wanted ads for what they reveal about enslaved people’s family separation and quest for reunification. Students will analyze ads and select text evidence to identify the impact of the Domestic Slave Trade on enslaved families.
Lesson plan
Family Separations Then & Now
This lesson has been designed to illustrate the similarities between historical events and contemporary issues regarding family separation.
Students will gain an understanding of the impact of the domestic slave trade on enslaved families and consider their efforts to reunite as one aspect of Reconstruction begun by the Freemen’s Bureau on the federal level and Black communities and newspapers on the local level.
Rwandan Genocide and Finding Family After Slavery
The student will be able to: Examine the similarities and differences between the experiences and struggles of those who survived the Rwandan genocide and reconciliation and those who survived slavery and attempted to find family and loved ones after emancipation.
Lesson plan
Love & Marriage: The Search for Husbands and Wives after Emancipation
This 3-day curriculum unit asks students to consider the importance of family and how family separation in slavery disrupted enslaved people’s marriages—and how the search for a spouse after emancipation testifies to the importance of the bonds enslaved formed with one another.
Lesson plan
Using Firsthand Accounts to Understand the Search for Family in the Era of Reconstruction
This lesson is designed to have students approach family separation in slavery from multiple first-hand perspectives including a published narrative, an ad placed in a newspaper searching for family, and an interview with a formerly enslaved person recalling their own separation through sale. Situated within Reconstruction, students will consider how Reconstruction involved more than political reunification, for newly freed people it meant the chance to search for family and ignited the hope for reunion.
Lesson planGrades 9-12 Lessons and Activities
Last Seen Poster Project
Students will use a Last Seen ad to create a poster project telling the story of familial separation caused by the Domestic Slave Trade.
Lesson plan
Using Primary Sources to Write History
This lesson focuses on analyzing a variety of primary sources related to a single Last Seen advertisement to understand what Last Seen ads reveal about the lives of the enslaved and the separation of families.
Lesson plan Thinking Like an Historian
This lesson focuses on analyzing an Information Wanted ad(s) for what it reveals about enslaved people’s family separation and quest for reunification.
Lesson plan Primary Source Analysis
This lesson focuses on analyzing a variety of primary sources related to a single Last Seen advertisement to understand what Last Seen ads reveal about the lives of the enslaved and the separation of families.
Lesson plan
Primary Source Document Set: Eliza Baldridge
This document set includes two Last Seen ads, a historic map of Arkansas, census records, Works Progress Administration narratives, demographic tables, and Eliza Baldridge's death certificate. Teachers can use these documents as the basis for a Document Based Question or in multiple combinations for primary source analysis lessons.
Lesson plan
Primary Source Document Set: Richard Conway
This document set includes a Last Seen ad, military records, census records, City Directory records, images, and two run away slave advertisements that teachers can use as the basis for a Document Based Question or in multiple combination for lessons focusing on primary source analysis.
Lesson plan
Primary Source Document Set: Henry Tibbs
This document set includes a Last Seen ad, military records, census records, and records from the Freedmen's Bureau that teachers can use as the basis for a Document Based Question or in multiple combinations for lessons focusing on primary source analysis.
Lesson plan
Black Churches Reconnecting Families
This lesson plan focuses on the role Black churches played in connecting formerly enslaved families during and after Reconstruction.
Lesson plan
Finding Family After Slavery
Students will use both secondary and primary sources to evaluate the long-standing impact of slavery on the lives of African Americans. Additionally, students will analyze the ways in which the formerly enslaved attempted to find freedom and fulfillment during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age era.
Lesson plan Family Separations Then & Now
This lesson has been designed to illustrate the similarities between historical events and contemporary issues regarding family separation.
Students will gain an understanding of the impact of the domestic slave trade on enslaved families and consider their efforts to reunite as one aspect of Reconstruction begun by the Freemen’s Bureau on the federal level and Black communities and newspapers on the local level.
Analyzing Historical Trends & Patterns in the Search for Family after Slavery
This lesson asks students to analyze Last Seen ads to develop a claim (thesis statement) about the historical trends and patterns they observe in formerly enslaved people’s efforts to reunite with loved ones based on evidence gathered from comparing Last Seen advertisements. This lesson fits into a unit on Reconstruction and life in the post-bellum South. It also allows students to make broader connections between historical familial separation and current events.
Lesson planIn the College Classroom
Last Seen Poster Project
Students will use a Last Seen ad to create a poster project telling the story of familial separation caused by the Domestic Slave Trade.
Lesson plan
Creating a Timeline that Tells a Story
Students will use a Last Seen ad and research to tell the story of a formerly enslaved person's search for their family.
Lesson plan Using Primary Sources to Write History
This lesson focuses on analyzing a variety of primary sources related to a single Last Seen advertisement to understand what Last Seen ads reveal about the lives of the enslaved and the separation of families.
Lesson plan Primary Source Analysis
This lesson focuses on analyzing a variety of primary sources related to a single Last Seen advertisement to understand what Last Seen ads reveal about the lives of the enslaved and the separation of families.
Lesson plan Primary Source Document Set: Eliza Baldridge
This document set includes two Last Seen ads, a historic map of Arkansas, census records, Works Progress Administration narratives, demographic tables, and Eliza Baldridge's death certificate. Teachers can use these documents as the basis for a Document Based Question or in multiple combinations for primary source analysis lessons.
Lesson plan Primary Source Document Set: Richard Conway
This document set includes a Last Seen ad, military records, census records, City Directory records, images, and two run away slave advertisements that teachers can use as the basis for a Document Based Question or in multiple combination for lessons focusing on primary source analysis.
Lesson plan Primary Source Document Set: Henry Tibbs
This document set includes a Last Seen ad, military records, census records, and records from the Freedmen's Bureau that teachers can use as the basis for a Document Based Question or in multiple combinations for lessons focusing on primary source analysis.
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