Teach
Each year, more than two million teachers and students engage in our in-person workshops, lesson plans, online classes, and the best-selling Folger Editions of Shakespeare’s plays.
For four decades, our programs and resources have supported teachers in all kinds of schools and students of all abilities, both locally and nationally.
We’re here for YOU!
New resources
Folger Guides to Teaching Shakespeare
This new series offers educators fresh insights, innovative tools, and detailed lesson plans for teaching some of Shakespeare’s most frequently taught plays.
The Magic of Macbeth
Summer Academy 2025
Join us for a week at the Folger where you’ll work with incredible mentor teachers, scholars, and theater professionals to explore Macbeth and other Shakespeare plays. Apply now!
Teaching with the Folger Method
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. It is a radical engine for equity that teachers consistently call “transformative.”
Learn more about the principles and practices that make up the Folger Method and get started!
Resources for teachers
Teachers do the most important work on Earth. Come, explore the myriad of resources and programming we have created and curated for you and your students. Get ready to set your students on fire with excitement about literature. Yes, Shakespeare, and oh, so much more!
Teacher Membership
Become a Folger Teacher Member and join the Folger in a special way: gain access to hundreds of classroom resources, professional development discounts, and more!
Resources by type
Lesson plans
Explore lesson plans that get students grappling on their own with a wide range of complex texts.
Become an expert on teaching anything the Folger way: Hamlet, Lucille Clifton, In the Time of the Butterflies, primary sources from the Folger vault, Their Eyes Were Watching God, American Moor, Twelfth Night, The Declaration of Independence, and lots more.
Professional development
Teacher Members of the Folger enjoy exclusive access to live-streamed workshops and a video library of on-demand professional development.
Watch master classes on teaching Shakespeare plays and engaging all learners in close reading. Meet Folger experts and fellow teachers. Join a community working to help all students fall in love with literature and the power of their own minds.
Student programs
Students are at the heart of our work. Folger’s work with students has spanned more than 40 years and students are a driving force behind our work.
Undergraduate teaching resources
Explore these tools for teaching, planning, and enhancing the undergraduate classroom! The Folger has resources related to a wide range of interdisciplinary topics, including Early Modern Critical Race, Early Modern Food Studies, Book History, Shakespeare, and Early Modern Drama.