Skip to main content
Folger Teaching Homepage
Teach /

Professional Development

Join us for never-ending learning

Workshop participants raising their hands.

Folger Education offers in-person and virtual options for professional development. We have a range of options to fit your schedule, whether you’re teaching in the Washington, DC, area or elsewhere in the United States.

By participating in our professional development trainings, you’ll learn the best ways to use the Folger Method in your classroom. The Folger Method is a way of teaching complex texts that enables all students to own—and enjoy—the process of reading closely, interrogating texts, discovering language with peers, and contributing to the ongoing human conversation about words and ideas.

Join our list

To find out when new professional development events are scheduled, sign up for our Education email list.

Upcoming professional development sessions

Exploring the Power of Rhetoric in Julius Caesar
Folger Education Professional Development

Exploring the Power of Rhetoric in Julius Caesar

Teachers, join us for a free, one-hour, virtual professional development session on Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.
Wed, Oct 22, 2025, 8pm ET
Virtual - Zoom

Virtual events

Each month, join us online for a one-hour professional development session, usually held on a Wednesday evening. It’s free!

Here are some of the topics we’ve recently discussed:

  • Launching students into complex texts using 20-minute plays
  • Teaching from the Shakespeare First Folio on the first day of school
  • Using Folger Essential Practices like Tossed Lines and Choral Reading
  • Practical ways to collect meaningful data while making Shakespeare accessible to all learners

In-person learning

Photo by Lloyd Wolf

Weekend workshops

In the spring and fall, Folger Education usually hosts weekend intensive workshops in Washington, DC. At these workshops, teachers learn essential teaching practices, explore rare materials in the Folger Shakespeare Library collection, and see a play on the Folger stage.

Summer Academies

Summer Academies are professional development programs that take place during the summer. We bring teachers to the Folger to spend a week diving into rare books, cutting-edge research, and powerful performance practices – all while working with incredible Folger Mentor Teachers, scholars, and theater professionals.

Transform the way you teach Shakespeare with the Folger Method — a language- and performance-based way of learning by doing.

Summer Academies are a one-week version of the Teaching Shakespeare Institutes (TSI) that Folger Education has held in past years with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Our 2025 Summer Academy, The Magic of Macbeth, focused on resources and skills for teaching Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Photo by Lloyd Wolf

Want to hear when our next Summer Academy is announced?
Get on our email list

Professional development resources on demand

Teacher Members enjoy access to a library of resources that include on-demand webinars on topics such as Shakespeare and race, teaching Shakespeare to English-language learners, and pairing Shakespeare with other texts in the classroom. Browse a selection of resources below, including some that we’ve made freely available to all teachers. View all resources

Become a Teacher Member today at $40/year for access to all these resources and more member benefits. Join us

The Folger Method

Take a deep dive into the most effective method for teaching and learning any complex text.

The Key to Getting ALL Students Understanding and Interpreting Complex Texts

Teaching Resource

The Key to Getting ALL Students Understanding and Interpreting Complex Texts

Free resource

Tags:

Trailblazing Women Poets You’re Probably Not Teaching—And Practical Strategies for Teaching Them Now

Teaching Resource

Trailblazing Women Poets You’re Probably Not Teaching—And Practical Strategies for Teaching Them Now

Tags:

Getting All Students Inside Tough Speeches

Teaching Resource

Getting All Students Inside Tough Speeches

How can any student encounter a speech for the first time and make meaning from it on their own, without any teacher explanation?
Tags:

Teach Their Eyes Were Watching God with Rigor and Joy

Teaching Resource

Teach Their Eyes Were Watching God with Rigor and Joy

How does the Folger Method help students discover and interpret Their Eyes Were Watching God?
Tags:

Master Class: Teaching Romeo and Juliet

Teaching Resource

Master Class: Teaching Romeo and Juliet

What are the most essential, and eye-opening, things any teacher must know about Romeo and Juliet? What are wildly effective approaches to teaching it?
Tags:

Master Class: Teaching Othello

Teaching Resource

Master Class: Teaching Othello

What matters most when we teach Othello? How can all students grapple with the language of race, religion, gender, and power?
Tags:

Shakespeare and Performance

Meet the artists behind visionary productions.

Directing Shakespeare: An Interview with Rosa Joshi

Teaching Resource

Directing Shakespeare: An Interview with Rosa Joshi

What drives Rosa Joshi to direct Shakespeare today? What does Shakespeare have for diverse casts and audiences?
Tags:

Directing Julius Caesar: An Interview with Michael Tolaydo

Teaching Resource

Directing Julius Caesar: An Interview with Michael Tolaydo

What can readers of Shakespeare learn from performing the text? What wisdom can we gain from a longtime actor and director?
Tags:

Juicy Lessons!

Juicy Lesson! Creating a Promptbook for Poet X (or ANY novel!)

Teaching Resource

Juicy Lesson! Creating a Promptbook for Poet X (or ANY novel!)

Tags:

Juicy Lesson! Pre-reading: A 20-minute Hamlet

Teaching Resource

Juicy Lesson! Pre-reading: A 20-minute Hamlet

Free resource

Tags:

Juicy Lesson! Choral Reading Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech

Teaching Resource

Juicy Lesson! Choral Reading Dr. King’s I Have A Dream speech

Free resource

Tags:

Juicy Lesson! Paired Texts: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing 2.1

Teaching Resource

Juicy Lesson! Paired Texts: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing 2.1

Tags:

Juicy Lesson! The Monologue Project

Teaching Resource

Juicy Lesson! The Monologue Project

Find out how and why this project works with any text, every student.
Tags:

Juicy Lesson! Choral Reading Imtiaz Dharker’s “The Trick” and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 43

Teaching Resource

Juicy Lesson! Choral Reading Imtiaz Dharker’s “The Trick” and Shakespeare’s Sonnet 43

Tags: