Teaching the First Folio on the First Day of School

August has a special resonance for teachers. Many of us are actively planning, creating, and making our spaces ready, while others are trying to soak up what’s left of summer before September arrives. The Folger is here for you no matter where you are in the process of getting ready to go back to the classroom. 

Join us for: 

• Tossing Lines to get your students out of their seats and working with language and making meaning. We’ll use passages directly from the First Folio to empower students to tackle Shakespeare or any complex text on Day 1. 
• Cutting the Text to help foster meaningful conversations and connections in the classroom. We’ll use Heminges and Condell’s “To the great Variety of Readers” as a launching pad for discussions about Shakespeare and the power of rhetoric. 
• Paired Texts to empower your students to discover different voices across the sweep of history. We’ll dig into an excerpt from James Baldwin’s classic “Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare.” This will ensure your students are able to bring their whole selves to literary analysis for the entire school year.