What do I need to change in the .htaccess folder to get an unrelated directory to work correctly? I have added an additional folder in my root which is completely unrelated to Kirby, but is hosting in the same location. I would like to show the page as a student project as an unlisted page but I get a blank screen. i tested this by removing htaccess and going to the page and it works fine.
You mean the .htaccess file, right?
There is no need to change the .htaccess file if you add an folder at the same level of the kirby, site, etc. folders of a standard Kirby installation. I.E. if you create a folder myfolder and place a file myfile.html therein, you just need to go to the URL http://mysite.com/myfolder/myfile.html and you are done. If not, you might already have some additional rules in your .htaccess which interfere.