Teaching Shakespeare

FAIN: ES-50536-13

Folger Shakespeare Library (Washington, DC 20003-1004)
Robert G. Young (Project Director: March 2013 to August 2013)
Margaret H. O'Brien (Project Director: August 2013 to May 2015)

A four-week institute for twenty-five school teachers on William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet, to be held at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

The Folger Shakespeare Library proposes Teaching Shakespeare 2014, a four-week institute for secondary school teachers. A group of 25 participants, working with a faculty of resident and visiting scholars, resident actors and theater specialists, and curriculum consultants, will undertake an intensive study of the intellectual, pedagogical, and theatrical challenges of two of Shakespeare’s plays, TWELFTH NIGHT and ROMEO AND JULIET, as well as acquaint them with digital resources that can be employed to better engage and resolve them within the classroom. Participants and faculty will approach these works via primary resources in order to reconstruct historical and cultural contexts; study production history (especially on film) to examine the play text’s live medium; engage in theatrical practice in order to convey the necessity of strong and well-considered interpretation; and explore new pedagogical technologies, including digital editions of the plays.