Teaching Othello with the Folger Guide

Join Noelle Cammon, Folger Mentor Teacher, for a two-hour virtual session devoted to the Folger Guide to Teaching Othello. Working through the guide in practice, we will explore hands-on approaches to introducing the language, strategies for close reading and scene work, and a unit sequence that takes students from first encounter to culminating activity.

You will leave with ready-to-use lessons, a flexible framework for pacing Othello in your classroom, and a discount in the Folger Shop for the Folger Guide to Teaching Othello. 

About Othello

In Othello, William Shakespeare creates powerful drama from a marriage between the Moor Othello and the Venetian lady Desdemona that begins with mutual devotion and ends with death. Shakespeare builds many differences into his hero and heroine, including race, age, and cultural background. Yet the couple’s strong love would easily overcome these differences were it not for Iago, who sets out to destroy Othello. 

You will leave with: 

• A lesson sequence for bringing Othello’s language to life, including activities on how Shakespeare uses prose and verse to reveal character 

• Strategies for scaffolding Iago’s manipulation and the play’s most charged scenes for students at every level 

• Approaches to the play’s ending that invite students to grapple seriously with its questions of trust, jealousy, and power