This author arrived at the Folger Shakespeare Library in 1981 kind of by accident, a DC public high school English teacher on hiatus from the classroom due to burying parents and birthing children. She was on her way back to that classroom, but the opportunity to work in the land of all things Shakespeare was too good to pass up, even though there…

Performance-based activities and creative projects with technology that focus on Shakespeare's language are powerful developmental tools for students to express and extend thoughts and feelings from their lives. Shakespeare becomes a toy chest and a toolset that allows students to live in situations they never could and to express language they…

Though classroom time is an adventure of its own, it is when working with the Carlisle High School Shakespeare Troupe, an extracurricular acting company, that the author most consistently and happily experiences this illusion of indefinite time. She has been working steadily with the troupe since the fall of 1984, and the troupe has produced a…

The author does not really like "Hamlet." He loves the play, the language, and the characters, but always finds it difficult to teach. Part of this is because he prefers to assign students scenes to perform as they read a Shakespeare text, but Hamlet does not divide nicely into manageable scenes, and he usually does not have enough teenage Ken…

In 2006, the author returned to school after completing the Teaching Shakespeare Institute at the Folger Library inspired with new performance-based ideas for teaching the plays. The author began to wonder about using Shakespeare as a vehicle for investigating "rich and strange" language with English Language Learners (ELLs). The author began by…

Dan recently turned 13; Nick will soon be 12. Both boys are smart and fun; both are loving, write like angels, like to learn, and want friends; both are autistic and hope to learn to speak. They find it challenging to relate to and function in this world, and they work hard to improve their abilities to do so. Last fall, Nick and Dan became…

Katie Dredger was a successful AP English Literature and Composition teacher when she began questioning the exclusivity her course represented. Here she shares how she was able to open her course to all students willing to attempt the challenge, while maintaining and even raising her intellectual standards. (Contains 5 figures.)

With the arrival of inexpensive camcorders and even video capability in cell phones, easy-to-use editing software such as iMovie and Windows Movie Maker, and instant universal distribution through YouTube and similar sites, individuals are coming to the point where they can create and manipulate images as easily as they do words. As an English…

Stressing the importance of Lev S. Vygostky's ideas about teaching and learning, Peter Smagorinsky challenges readers to form their own interpretations of the Russian psychologist's work. He highlights three points with implications for secondary school English teachers working to "cultivate a literate citizenry."

Tells of the author's search for and discovery of the first name of Lady Macbeth: Gruach. (DD)

In this chapter from his forthcoming book, Tom Romano reflects on the zigzag path that he has followed in making a life for himself in teaching.

To teach reading to a transient population of incarcerated young men on Rikers Island, Dave Iasevoli utilized the students' desire for knowledge and their talent for storytelling, humor, and acting to engage them. Students embodied the characters by reading aloud from the novel "The Planet of Junior Brown," from which discussions about obesity,…

Shakespeare's treatment of the themes of racial, religious, and economic prejudice is discussed. (SP)

Describes how a high school English teacher uses a Groucho Marx scene to help his students learn to read the subtext in Shakespeare plays of social context, characters' goals and desires, and obstacles standing in their way. Offers examples of skits students perform which make these subtexts explicit. Notes these skits spark debate and close…

In this article, the author vitalizes her British literature course by asking seniors to investigate, through an I-Search paper, the concept of heroism. Students research a historic or contemporary individual, drawing on their understanding of heroic literary figures previously studied, and interview family, community members, and others connected…