Resources

Explore the ways critical race work, representation, and power in literature connect. This professional development was recorded March 15, 2023 at 8PM ET.

Join us for a fascinating talk with Dr. Gail Paster as she explores the role of women in Shakespeare. This professional development session was recorded on December 8, 2022 at 8pm ET

In this lesson, high school English teacher and Folger Teacher Fellow, Noelle Cammon, leads participants through an exploration of depictions of “other” in Shakespeare and the messages those depictions send about humanity and dignity. This professional development session took place on November 10, 2022 at 8pm ET.

Experience the power of choral reading, paired texts, discovery and analysis, all with no explaining from the teacher. This professional development was recorded on October 27, 2022 at 8PM ET.

Explore Shakespeare’s sonnets, along with more modern sonnets, and engage students in their analysis of sonnets, social justice, and race. This professional development was recorded February 23, 2023 at 8PM ET.

Let Shakespeare do the teaching as students read, edit, and perform Shakespearean sonnets all with minimal help from the teacher

Have students discover the many kinds of sonnets that are being written today addressing familiar themes in contemporary language.

Students will read and respond to a Shakespearean sonnet and gain new insights into Shakespeare’s originality, wit, and humor

Introduce students to both a classic form of the sonnet and to one of its most recurrent and popular themes, lost love.

Watch as students become increasingly more comfortable reading Shakespeare as the close-read Sonnet 138.

Give students a greater understanding of the literary context in which Shakespeare was writing through the examination of Michael Drayton’s “The Parting.”

An introduction to Petrarch and the influence he had on sonnet writing in the 16th and 17th centuries and beyond.

If you teach A Midsummer Night’s Dream—but maybe particularly if you don’t—dive in with us!

JOIN US! For the first time ever, Folger staff and experienced mentor teachers take you through the principles and the essential practices that provide you and all of your students with a way to approach not just Shakespeare but any complex text.

Most often, literature—and certainly Shakespeare—can be the catalyst for meaningful conversations about race and difference. How do these topics arise? Should they?

Explore the anxieties and fears of death within the works of Shakespeare and Gwendolyn Brooks. This professional development was recorded April 27, 2022 at 8:00PM ET.

What happens when fatherly voices dialogue across gender, race, time, and region? Check out this professional development, and dive into one of our most popular lessons. This professional development was recorded on March 31, 2022 at 8PM. 

What’s the connection between race and the power and uncertainty of editing? Get the inside scoop of Patricia Akhimie’s findings and process as she discusses her experience while editing a scholarly edition of Shakespeare’s Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. This lecture was recorded on March 9, 2022.

Join our May Keynote speaker, Dr. Brian Jones. He supplies us with both research and reality about the role that race has played in American education, particularly in K-12 education. This lecture was recorded on May 11, 2022 at 8:00PM ET. 

Join our April 2022 keynote speaker, Dr. Jocelyn Chadwick in a wonderful and stimulating conversation. This presentation was recorded on April 28, 2022, at 8:00PM ET.

Get a taste of The Folger Guide to Teaching Hamlet., You don’t want to miss this! This teacher workshop was previously recorded on Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at 8pm ET.

What do 1619 Virginia and the making of America have to do with William Shakespeare? Uncover the answers with Mark Summers!.

How do we teach the intersections of art and literature, race and gender, then and now? And why?

Learn about the groundbreaking partnership between the Folger Shakespeare Library and Reconstruction.us, creating an unapologetically black educational experience for young students across the country.

You may think Romeo and Juliet might be an unusual play to choose to address the plague. Well, just you wait and see.

What happened at Teaching Shakespeare Is Teaching Race 2021, and what can I use in class right away?

Join Corinne Viglietta, former Associate Director of Education, for a quick, jam-packed 30-minute exploration of “Teaching Shakespeare is Teaching Race.”

Join Folger Education July 19-23, 2021 for a professional learning experience unlike any other, no matter which Shakespeare play you teach. Help students use their own minds and voices—and the power of the humanities—as a force for good. Teach Shakespeare for a changed world.

In this three-week virtual summer institute (June 27 – July 16, 2021) sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, 25 middle and high school teachers immerse themselves into the hold that Shakespeare and early America have had and continue to have on each other–with full attention to the roles that indigenous, Black, brown and Latinx people play during this slice of history.

In this 60-minute workshop, Dr. Christina Porter shows you easy-to-use techniques to make Shakespeare’s plays accessible to all students, particularly English-Language Learners.

What happens when a Black American actor gives the word “Moor” a whole new set of meanings?

Students confront Romeo’s racist language, with help from Maya Angelou.

What if we teach Macbeth without ambition? What if we push back against the Shakespearean cliché in an effort to make more room for our voices and the voices of our students? How might we clear some space to see this old, familiar text in new, and newly useful ways? This lecture was recorded on Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 8PM ET .

What if we stepped back as teachers and let students write their own essential questions for this text set? What if we set up a zone of discovery where students made their own insights into what these texts have to say to each other and to our world today?

Walk away with techniques you can use tomorrow and every day to help ALL students read with skill and confidence. Join the Folger community of brilliant, curious, caring, and committed teachers, and gain colleagues, ideas, and resources that will inspire you for the rest of your teaching life. We can’t wait to work with you. AFT-SML Virtual Conference 2021 — Thursday, March 25th at 8PM ET

Teaching The Tempest means creating a space for classroom conversations about race, power, indigeneity, slavery, and the painful making of America.

Are you thinking about teaching, Poet X, Elizabeth Acevedo’s emotionally piercing story about an Afro-Latina heroine? Join FolgerED for the simple instructions you need to get students doing rigorous literary interpretation and evaluation–all without you!

Gwendolyn Brooks. Lucille Clifton. Teri Ellen Cross Davis. Join poet, instructor, and the Folger’s own Poetry Coordinator Teri Cross Davis along with Maryam Trowell, former Manager of Teacher and Student Programs, for the second exploration of Black women poets you should know and be teaching.

This Feed Your Teacher Brain! conversation on Shakespeare and Race was FREE for all educators on Thursday, March 4, 2021 at 8:00PM ET. Includes Ruben Espinosa’s bibliography “Diversifying Shakespeare”

This Feed Your Teacher Brain! conversation on Shakespeare and Gender was free to all teachers on Thursday, March 11, 2021 at 8:00PM ET.

You may know Phillis Wheatley, the first African American author to publish a book of poems, but do you know Frances E.W. Harper and Anne Spencer? Immerse yourself in the poetry of Black women in America and walk away with ideas for text sets that will spark the ears, eyes, and minds of you and your students.

Don’t miss this juicy lesson on how to introduce students to the plot, setting, and characters of a play in a straightforward way so that quickly get inside the language of the play.

Whether you are teaching Twelfth Night or a different piece of literature, don’t miss this juicy lesson on using images as a scaffold to get students into a complex text.

Watch live students tackle tough texts online and IRL. Learn how to get every single student not only understanding but also speaking back to a vast range of texts.

There’s a wrong way to use film in class. This lesson shows you how to avoid it—and teach thoughtful analysis!

Powerful speeches are meant to be spoken and heard. Muscular language is meant to be flexed. This lesson is all about helping students discover the power of Dr. King’s groundbreaking 1963 speech from Washington.

Wondering how to teach a play online and fast without sacrificing rigor? This workshop will give you a blueprint for helping students to make meaning of the juiciest parts of a play without losing the plot.

Get ALL students to turn on their cameras with a sure-fire, student-centered, and easy-to-implement teaching technique that can be used over and over again.

Susan Barber and Corinne Viglietta dive into poetry by trailblazing women poets. Learn how to design learning so that ALL students live inside the language of these extraordinary poems written by trailblazing women.

Join Folger Education and teachers from around the country for a virtual community conversation.

A favorite and essential way of introducing a play!

Cutting a scene is a powerful classroom routine that gets students reading and rereading, evaluating language, and making collaborative decisions.

Get students inside the beauty of Shakespeare’s most-well known sonnet with this choral reading lesson.

Choral reading is one of those techniques that works brilliantly in person and online!

Get students evaluating Shakespeare’s writing all on their own with this low-prep, high-impact way of teaching close reading.

Get the whole class working together to put a scene on its feet as they question the text and cite evidence–sneaky close reading!

Get students out of their seats and on their feet bringing close reading to life with 3D Literature!

Teaching To Kill a Mockingbird? Instead of a teacher-led presentation, try this student-centered least intimidating way in.

Get students comparing and challenging interpretations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream using images and choral reading.

Get students close reading with a purpose by challenging groups to eliminate half the lines from Julius Caesar 3.1 while retaining its meaning.

Use art to get students thinking about the witches in Macbeth and the way in which artists have represented these characters over time.

Students bring to life Julius Caesar’s death scene through close, imaginative reading.

Give students a real purpose for reading closely and creatively, and be amazed at what happens.

Writing a group sonnet is a collaborative learning exercise–and is also noisy and fun!

Let the comedic insults of this play get your students excited about reading Much Ado About Nothing!

Get students evaluating Shakespeare’s writing all on their own with this low-prep, high-impact way of teaching close reading.

Watch as students experiment with and own the language of Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities in this low-prep, high impact way of teaching close reading.

An irresistible and effective way to introduce students to Elizabeth Acevedo’s novel-in-verse Poet X.

Let your students discover for themselves the power of Shakespeare’s language and the power of their own brains with 3-D Shakespeare.

Give students a real purpose for reading closely and creatively, and be amazed at what happens.

Although short, “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros is a complex story just begging for students to bring it to life. Get students reading closely and making meaningful annotations as they create a promptbook of this emotional narrative.

Get students meaningfully close-reading and purposefully annotating as they create a promptbook of Chapter Five of George Orwell’s captivating dystopian novel.

Introduce your students to the character of Othello and the way in which artists have represented him over the years.

Starting with a single line is the least intimidating way to get students grappling with the language of a complex text. These juicy lines from Fences will have students owning Wilson’s language in no time at all.

No need for a lecture or a lengthy explanation. Get students examining the opening pages of Beloved all on their own.

What new understandings about race, gender (and so much more) will be unearthed when students pair soliloquies from Beatrice and Ma Rainey?

What interesting ideas might students unearth when they have two characters speak across time and region?

Get the whole class working together to put a scene on its feet as they question the text and cite evidence–sneaky close reading!

A favorite and essential way of introducing a play!

Challenge your students to think about how they would want to tell the story of Much Ado About Nothing.

Introduce your students to the characters of Shylock and the way in which artists have represented the character over the years.

2-line scenes are a wonderful, student-centered way to introduce students to the language of The Bluest Eye.

Allow choral reading to bring to life the lyrical power of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s writing.

Allow choral reading to bring to life the lyrical power of Toni Morrison’s writing.

The power of asides, in plays separated by centuries and united by common questions…

A favorite and essential way of introducing a play!

A longtime Folger favorite lesson!

Let your students discover for themselves the drama and tension of this moment from Othello.

What happens when your students edit Shakespeare’s Hamlet?

Students do the work of directors and teachers everywhere: cut the strange, long, and imagery-rich “Queen Mab” speech!

Let the topsy-turvy poetry of this play work on your students!

Students never forget this first day of their Romeo and Juliet unit!

Starting The Color Purple? Instead of a teacher-led presentation, try this student-centered way in.

A surprising and ridiculously effective way to start The Great Gatsby!

What’s going on in Shylock’s revenge speech?

Forget for a moment what’s been said about Portia’s courtroom speech. What do today’s students make of it?

Choral reading is one of those techniques that works brilliantly in person and online!

What can we learn from the trial of Antonio? Your students investigate and decide.

Students own the language and story of Richard III right from the outset.

Students bring the end of The Tempest to life through close, imaginative reading.

Give students a real purpose for reading closely and creatively, and be amazed at what happens.

The single most irresistible and effective way to begin a study of Alvarez’s novel!

Get students thinking deeply about control and power by pairing soliloquies in two plays: August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Learn practical tools for getting every student reading closely, making new discoveries, getting excited about literature, and engaging with the digital humanities with Anne Blaney, an English teacher at Syosset High School (NY), and Corinne Viglietta, former Associate Director of Folger Education.

A much more exciting, authentic, and rigorous final assessment than an essay or test. Try the monologue project with virtually any text. Find out how and why this project works with any text, every student.

Learn how to let these two poems talk to each other—and how to get your students talking back to both of them. Walk through the what, how, and why of this paired text lesson with the teachers who created it: Dr. Deborah Gascon and Corinne Viglietta.

Watch when happens when students are asked to find the story in a sonnet–and then perform it.

Let students encounter the language and start to make inferences about Richard III in this low-stakes, high-energy lesson.

A collaborative, low-stakes, language-centered introduction to Midsummer

How to get every single student learning and loving Midsummer from day one!

What might happen if students’ first encounter with a play was one that let them discover it–and edit it–for themselves? Turn the opening of Midsummer over to your class to find out!

How did Shakespeare take a book of legend and turn it into drama? Students compare his witches in Macbeth to those of Holinshed.

A rousing and rigorous way to get inside Edmund’s monologue in 1.2! Students close-read this speech without any teacher explanation.

What do Rena from August Wilson’s Jitney and Lady Macbeth have in common?

Living inside the language of Clint Smith and Shakespeare, students examine fatherly advice, race, and growing up.

Students work in small groups to read, evaluate, and edit an early scene from Shelley’s novel. Lively debate ensues!

What do Troy from August Wilson’s Fences and Cordelia from Shakespeare’s King Lear have in common? This lesson asks students to consider the possibilities, actively.

What’s an effective way to launch your students into engaged study of Tayari Jones’ An American Marriage?

The “seven ages of man” speech–read chorally and physically by your students!

An Imtiaz Dharker sonnet talks to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 43 in this close reading lesson.

What if August Wilson’s King Hedley could talk to Shakespeare’s Hamlet? What might these characters say—and share?

Find out why Dr. King’s speech should never be studied silently again. What your students do in this lesson will amaze you–and them.

How can studying primary source images of Malvolio deepen students’ understanding of Shakespeare’s character?

Students discover the “four directions” scene of The Joy Luck Club on their own, without any teacher explanation.

Students discover the world of promptbooks and create their own promptbooks as a way of imagining a three-dimensional version of Julius Caesar 3.2.

Set the tone for a language-focused, student-driven study of Othello.

The future of the humanities depends on the insights of ALL our students. How do we get students not only understanding but also speaking back to a vast and rich range of texts? Gain practical ideas in this virtual workshop.

What can this tragedy teach us about race and religion?

Who or what has the power in this scene from Chapter 6? Whose story is it, and how can cutting the text affect that?

Ask students to cut this rowdy Twelfth Night scene in half, and be amazed at what happens.

Forget a slide deck on Shakespeare’s life and times. Start Romeo and Juliet with the words in your students’ mouths– actively and joyfully!

Introduce the language and story of Othello and prepare your students for courageous conversations about race and power. A twist on 20-minute plays.

Students get up close with the 1623 First Folio to solve a textual mystery about the witches in Macbeth.

Hamlet’s “to be” soliloquy in 12 languages!

What does it mean to edit Macbeth, and what are some of the issues at stake in this work?

Instead of starting your Hurston unit with a slide deck or tons of historical context, let your students connect with the rich language of the novel right from the start.

Get out of the way and let your students create the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet. Here’s how.

Might Othello be the best Shakespeare play for discussing race, sexuality, and status in America?

A world of “sighs” or “kisses”? How does word choice affect what a line–maybe even a play–means?

The opening scene of Their Eyes Were Watching God can be challenging for students, but when they get on their feet and perform it, the scene comes alive with amazing clarity.

An immersive and unforgettable way to understand The Declaration of Independence.

Introduce the language and story of Romeo and Juliet with this lively 20-minute play.

Ask students to cut the opening scene of Othello in half, and be amazed at what happens.

Students work in groups to read and perform Macbeth’s famous soliloquy in Macbeth 5.5

Introduce the language and story of Hamlet with this lively 20-minute play.

Introduce any Shakespeare play this way. Trust us– it works!

What does a black actor at an audition in today’s world have to say to Shakespeare’s Othello? This choral reading mashup will ignite bold discussion.

Use literature as a tool for anti-racism. Even if you don’t teach Merchant, this curriculum will help your students think and act with courage.

Online access to over 100,000 images from the Folger Shakespeare Library collection!

Which version of Hamlet’s speech is better? Let students analyze, evaluate, and decide for themselves.

Students discover the opening scene of Hamlet for themselves, together. Close reading on your feet!

A riveting speech and the most riveting (and sneakily rigorous) way to teach it: be astounded by Macbeth’s words in the mouths of your students!

On the first day of school, make your students want to come back to class.

Powerful digital tools that enable readers everywhere to analyze Shakespeare’s plays in new ways and make fresh discoveries.

How does Shakespeare help us think through war, religion, race, and other issues from our own time?

A 2-hour extravaganza of Shakespeare stories from actors, community leaders, teachers, students, and scholars!

“You see, I am a black woman who teaches and writes about William Shakespeare, and I am also someone who teaches and writes about issues of race.”

Why–and how–should students read Shakespeare’s sonnets in class?

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?

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

How do we help students grapple with race, power, and poetic language? What do student gain by putting Shakespeare in conversation with Poe, Clifton, and today’s social issues?

Find out what’s wrong with calling Shakespeare “universal.”

“Whiteness is everywhere implied but nowhere acknowledged.”

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

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

What does Shakespeare have to do with President Lincoln’s assassination? What is gained by examining the continuities between English literature and American history?

What does it mean to teach Hamlet the Folger way? Do you have to teach the whole play? What do scholars, teachers, and artists have to say about Hamlet?

What is Folger Education, and what’s this community of teachers all about?

Start Hamlet 3.1 with this lesson, which asks students to cut this famous scene from Hamlet down to half its length.

A much more exciting, authentic, and rigorous final assessment than an essay or test. Try the monologue project with virtually any text.

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

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

What does it mean to teach Julius Caesar the Folger way? What insights from performance, scholarship, and expert classroom practice can grow your knowledge and your students’ understanding?

What are the best, and worst, things you can do in the first week of a Shakespeare unit?