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!
Teaching Shakespeare Institute 2024
Shakespeare: Othello and The Taming of the Shrew in Conversation
July 7-July 19, 2024
The application period for the 2024 Teaching Shakespeare Institute is now closed, and we’re getting ready for an amazing experience for our cohort of teachers. Check out how this two-week program will leave you energized and ready to teach your students in a powerful and transformative way.
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!
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.
Upcoming professional development
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. While our student programs are on hiatus as our beautiful building undergoes renovation, we have been planning, planning, and planning. When our building renovation is complete, we will dazzle you with a revised array of great experiences for students.
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.