Advance Reading

Prior to the Workshop, you will be asked to read selections from four primary texts and a course packet.

  • Emily Dickinson: Selected Letters. Ed. Thomas Johnson. Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1971.
  • The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Reading Edition. Ed. R.W. Franklin. Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 1999.
  • Longsworth, Polly. The World of Emily Dickinson. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990.
  • A Historical Guide to Emily Dickinson, ed. by Vivian R. Pollak. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2004.

The course packet will include additional readings that provide background for the week's topics. The materials will be sent to you in advance of the workshop and costs—estimated at $100—will be taken out of your stipend before it is processed.

You will also receive a selected bibliography that lists major editions of Dickinson's work as well as other biographies, reference works, and criticism.

There will be only limited reading assignments during the Workshop.

Your Curriculum Project

The Emily Dickinson Museum hopes that your experience in "Emily Dickinson: Person, Poetry, and Place" will lead to new and enriching possibilities in your classroom and school. To that end, you will be asked to complete a curriculum project outline or a plan for new classroom resources during the Workshop.

Prior to the Workshop, we will ask you to submit one current lesson plan or list of resources that you would like to adapt, enhance, or revise as part of your workshop experience.

During the Workshop, you will work in small groups with a mentor teacher to reflect on the joys and challenges of teaching Dickinson and to develop your curriculum project. Time is set aside each day for group meetings, independent study, and/or individual consultation with Workshop faculty. At the end of the week, you will share your curriculum project with peers and will submit a short written (one- or two-page) summary (a template will be provided) of your project to your mentor teacher.

After the Workshop, you are asked to use your unit in the following school year and to share the results of your efforts with the Museum. We will consider it for posting on our web site and for distribution to educators who participate in future Museum programs. The Museum will sponsor several on-line discussion groups so that you may continue conversations begun during the summer about Dickinson, poetry, or pedagogy. The Museum will send out a survey in spring 2010 to learn more about the Workshop's impact on you as a learner and as an educator.

Evaluation

At the end of the Workshop week, we will take time to reflect individually and as a group on the experience. Participants will also provide NEH with an assessment of their Workshop experience, especially in terms of its value to their personal and professional development, via a confidential online evaluation.

Credit

Participants who complete all Workshop sessions will receive a certificate confirming their participation and a detailed description of the Workshop, which will specify the number of contact hours undertaken as well as outline the reading assignments and session topics. Participants may use these documents to apply for Continuing Education Unit credits in their home states.