Booking and details
RegisterDates Fri, Mar 13 – Sat, Mar 14, 2026
Venue Folger Library
Tickets $300
Duration 10am – 5pm each day
Open to middle and high school teachers from across the US – no prior Shakespeare experience required.
Join a national community of teachers for two lively days of learning, professional development, and discovery at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Through hands-on workshops, performances, and time in the Folger’s world-renowned collection, you’ll experience the Folger Method in action and return to your classroom with fresh tools to bring Shakespeare’s comedies to life for your students.
This weekend we’ll dive into Shakespeare’s comedies (As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing), and Puck may even end up sprinkling in a dash of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare treated play titles as invitations, not definitions, and that spirit guides our weekend, too. Together we will explore how laughter, disguise, and transformation invite students to think deeply about identity, belonging, and community. We will move through the Folger Method’s arc of learning, starting with words, building toward scenes, and connecting every discovery back to the classroom. Expect lively, messy, fun, and impactful work. Just like great learning.
Teaching with the Folger Method
- Experience the Folger Method in Action: Explore practical ways to bring the joy and complexity of Shakespeare’s comedies into your classroom. You will spend two days immersed in Folger Method activities: first as a learner inside the text, then as an educator reflecting on how this approach functions in practice. We’ll dig into how the Folger Method works in classrooms of all sizes and levels, focusing on collaboration, accessibility, and the joy of discovery.
- Develop Your Students’ Empathy: Working with Shakespeare, and with complex texts more broadly, builds habits of mind that matter far beyond the English classroom. Wrestling with ambiguity, making meaning through language, and holding multiple perspectives at once help students develop the empathy, communication, and analytical skills that are central to the humanities and essential in every field.
- Connect Shakespeare to Every Student: Performance brings all of this to life. Stepping inside a character’s words sparks creativity, empathy, and confidence. When students get Shakespeare on their feet, trading lines, staging scenes, or simply speaking a moment aloud, they do not just understand the play better—; they understand each other better. And it is a whole lot of fun.
- Bring It Back to Your Classroom: By the end of the Teacher Weekend Intensive, you will leave the Folger with lessons and Essential Practices you can use in your classroom on Monday. Sessions will be led by Corinne Viglietta, Folger Mentor Teacher and English teacher at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Maryland, and Liam Dempsey, Associate Director of Education at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Explore the Folger collection
Beyond the classroom;, you’ll step behind the scenes of the world’s largest Shakespeare collection. Spend hands-on time with rare materials that illuminate Shakespeare’s comedies and the worlds that shaped them. You will visit the Exhibition Hall and Learning Lab, see the 82 First Folios, and watch our working replica of a 17th-century printing press in action. Throughout the weekend, you will consider how these primary sources can help your students make connections between Shakespeare’s time and their own. You will also learn practical ways to bring the Folger’s digital collection and teaching resources into your classroom, giving students direct access to the same materials scholars use every day. These skills will help you extend the Folger experience long after you return to school.
Experience a performance and receive classroom resources
Your registration doesn’t just cover the two days of immersive learning. Each participant will also receive:
- Folger Shakespeare Edition of As You Like It
- Folger Guide to Teaching Shakespeare text of your choice
- Ticket to Folger Theatre’s production of As You Like It
Together, these experiences and materials extend the weekend’s spirit of exploration, helping you bring the energy of the Folger back to your students and classrooms. By the end of the weekend, you’ll leave the Folger with:
- Hands-on experience using the Folger Method
- Monday ready lessons and activities using the Essential Practices
- Ways of expanding your use of primary sources from the Folger Collection and beyond
- A connection to the Folger and everything it has to offer you and your students
Registration is $300 and space is limited. Reserve your spot now for two days of exciting professional development that can only happen at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Mentor Teacher
Corinne Viglietta
Corinne Viglietta teaches Upper School English at The Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, Maryland. From 2014-2022, Corinne was Associate Director of Education at the Folger Shakespeare Library, where she had the honor of exploring the wonders of language with thousands of amazing teachers, students, and visitors. Corinne played a key role in Folger’s national teaching community and school partnerships. She has led workshops on the Folger Method for numerous organizations, including the Smithsonian, National Council of Teachers of English, and American Federation of Teachers. Corinne is a lifelong Folger educator, having first discovered the power of this approach with her multilingual students in DC and France. She has degrees in English from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Maryland.