Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women

Lesson plans based on the documentary and biography are available on the official Louisa May Alcott website.

After completing this lesson, students will have a better understanding of the lives and roles of women in pre-Civil War America.

This lesson plan will explore the wide-ranging debate over American slavery by presenting the lives of its leading opponents and defenders and the views they held about America’s “peculiar institution.”

We generally consider our country’s Forefathers to be the men who signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, or the U.S. Constitution. Which names should become as familiar to Americans as those of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr.? This lesson puts students in touch with some key documents of the equal rights movement as well as other sources for locating information about the Foremothers of women’s equality.

Introduce students to fundamental ideas of critical literacy through a reading and critical analysis of two pieces of literature from the 1800s, focusing on each author's intent and intended audience.

This unit encourages teachers and students to explore one of America’s favorite classic novels, Little Women, learn about the Alcott’s life, and develop an interest in classics.

A collection of curriculum resources from the Walden Woods Project.

This lesson plan provides general background information about the primary groups involved in efforts to reform women’s dress in nineteenth-century America.

After a brief introduction to the Transcendentalist movement of the 1800s, students develop a working definition of Transcendentalism by answering and discussing a series a questions about their own individualism and relationship to nature.