In the chaos and pain of today, do you ever miss the sparks that first drew you to teaching? Do you want to breathe fresh life into your classroom? Do you want to help every student do hard things on their own, but sometimes struggle to make complexity fun? Do your students need more tools for interacting energetically with texts, ideas, one another, and the world?
There are specific, classroom-tested strategies that address these needs. Join the Folger Shakespeare Library for this session to learn how these strategies work so you can use them right away to transform any literacy lesson. Make your class the most exciting part of your students’ day--ALL students.
Using examples from a range of texts, this workshop will lay out core techniques that not only stretch every learner but also help fill your classroom with joy, humor, and sometimes even inspiration. The secret: putting the student in the driver’s seat leads to sophisticated skills and amazing discoveries–and, yes, fun.
The best kind of learning feels like a great adventure. Join the Folger community of brilliant, curious, caring, and committed teachers, and gain colleagues, ideas, and resources that will inspire you for the rest of your teaching life. We can’t wait to work with you.
Speakers
Noelle Cammon
My name is Noelle Cammon and I am a Teacher Fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library and an English Teacher at Heritage High School in Menifee, California. This will be my 16th year in education. I have also taught middle school and completed the Teaching Shakespeare Institute summer NEH program. I love the work that I get to do and I am always honored to work with teachers to hone our teaching skills.
Peggy O’Brien
Folger Director of Education Peggy O’Brien has taught English to middle and high school students in DC Public Schools, and Shakespeare to all kinds of teachers everywhere. She founded the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Education Department in 1981, setting the Library’s mission for K-12 students and teachers and putting it in motion. Among other programs, she founded the Library's month-long, intensive Teaching Shakespeare Institute. She is general editor of both the Shakespeare Set Free series and the upcoming series of Folger Guides to Teaching Shakespeare, to be published by Simon and Schuster in 2023. In 1994, she took a short break from the Folger—almost 20 years—and worked nationally and locally, mostly as Senior VP for Education at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and as Chief of Family and Public Engagement for DC Public Schools. She was recruited back to the Folger in 2013 to reinvigorate and expand the education work. Dr. O’Brien received her B.A. in English from Trinity College in Washington, D.C., M.A. in Education from The Catholic University of America, and Ph.D. from American University.
Amber Phelps
Folger Shakespeare Library Teacher Fellow Amber Phelps is in her 12th year of teaching English at Baltimore City College High School. She currently teaches both AP Literature and Composition and Higher Level English III in the IB Diploma Program. Amber is an alum of both Teach for America (Baltimore '10) and the Folger Library’s 2012 Teaching Shakespeare Institute. In 2018, Amber was the recipient of the Kennedy Leadership Award for Excellence in Teaching. In addition to her instructional work at City, Amber is the Assistant Director of the BCC HS Speech and Debate Society.
