three teachers talking

Teaching Resources

The Great Read Series offers students an opportunity to identify with literature, feature contemporary voices and foster a culture of learning. The following resources are available to guide you throughout the discovery of the latest book selection.

The following is a list of resources you may use as entry points into the novel.

Recommendations for learning more about Shakespeare from Professor Tom Tipton

Crystal, David. Think on My Words: Exploring Shakespeare's Language. Cambridge UP, 2012.

In Think on My Words David Crystal addresses one of the recurring stumbling blocks for readers just starting to encounter Shakespeare’s works: the language of the texts is undeniably difficult. But why? Crystal brings a linguist’s eye to the problem and sets Shakespeare’s unique language within the context of the language of his time. He covers issues of phonology, graphology, and even punctuation. Perhaps most usefully he also covers pronunciation. Crystal and his son were instrumental in having London’s recreated Globe Theatre put on the first of its kind performance in 2004 of Romeo and Juliet in Original Pronunciation instead of the predominantly and erroneously used Received Pronunciation. If you’ve ever scratched your head at the ending of Sonnet 116, consider the possibility that loved and proved really did rhyme, and that this book is for you.

Winkler, Elizabeth. Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature. Simon & Schuster, 2023.

In 2019 Elizabeth Winkler published an article titled “Was Shakespeare a Woman?” in The Atlantic. As one could imagine it caused quite a stir and even some fussy blowback from traditionalists, but Winkler’s question gets to a truth about Shakespeare: everyone wants to claim some aspect of his identity. He has been described over the years as gay, black, Jewish, or Catholic. For some elitists he was not possibly well educated enough to write all the plays on his own, so Shakespeare became a “school,” or simply someone else altogether, such as Francis Bacon. In Shakespeare Was a Woman Winkler uses her journalistic skills not only to answer the question she posed in her article in The Atlantic, but to show the paucity of biographical evidence about Shakespeare and the continuing allure of creating a biography to fill that void. In the end what Winkler really shows is the ultimate unknowability of the personhood of William Shakespeare.

Recommendations for learning more about this historic time period from Professor Maria Ritzema

Chang, Eileen (Zhang Ailing). Lust, Caution: The Story. Translated by Julia Lovell, Anchor Books, 1979.

Chang recalls her own traumatic and adventurous wartime years in this novella that, because it is so personal and revelatory, took her more than 35 years to write. The long Japanese occupation of the city, the relationships that formed in those desperate times, and the terrible choices the Shanghainese were forced to make are at the heart of a book that became a fantastic movie directed by Ang Lee. Chang remains the pre-eminent bard of Shanghai.. 

French, Paul. City of Devils: The Two Men Who Ruled the Underworld of Old Shanghai. Picador, 2018.

Shanghai, 1930s: It was a haven for outlaws from all over the world: a place where pasts could be forgotten, fascism and communism outrun, names invented, and fortunes made—and lost. “Lucky” Jack Riley was the most notorious of those outlaws. An ex–U.S. Navy boxing champion, he escaped from prison and rose to become the Slots King of Shanghai. “Dapper” Joe Farren—a Jewish boy who fled Vienna’s ghetto—ruled the nightclubs. His chorus lines rivaled Ziegfeld’s. In 1940, Lucky Jack and Dapper Joe bestrode the Shanghai Badlands like kings, while all around the Solitary Island was poverty, starvation, and war. They thought they ruled Shanghai, but the city had other ideas. This is the story of their rise to power, their downfall, and the trail of destruction left in their wake. Shanghai was their playground for a flickering few years, a city where for a fleeting moment even the wildest dreams could come true.

Malraux, André. Man’s Fate. Vintage, 1990.

In recreating the bloody events of the suppression of the Communist party in Shanghai in 1927, Malraux wrote the best novel about interwar Shanghai. His cast of characters – both Chinese and foreign – reflect the city’s cosmopolitan population and its Jekyll and Hyde politics of being both a center of rightwing bootstraps capitalism and the birthplace of the Chinese Communist party.

Pan, Lynn (Pan Ling). Old Shanghai: Gangsters in Paradise. Marshall Cavendish, 1984.

Pan is a non-fiction writer living in Shanghai who was a child during the Japanese occupation. Her research and scholarship is exemplary, while her writing is both precise and lyrical. She evokes the interwar years of Shanghai wonderfully, portraying the city as a criminal free-for-all controlled by its all-powerful Chinese mobs, “Big Eared” Du’s Green Gang and “Pockmarked” Huang’s Red Gang.

Spence, Jonathan D. The Search for Modern China. Norton, 1991.

This text, the classic introduction to modern China for students and general readers, emerged from Spence’s highly successful introductory course at Yale, in which he traced the beginnings of modern China to internal developments beginning in the early 17th century. Strong on social and political history, as well as Chinese culture and its intersections with politics, this paperback is a longstanding leader in the survey course on modern China. The companion reader of primary sources that goes along with this would also be useful, especially about the Mukden incident. 

Wood, Frances. No Dogs and Not Many Chinese: Treaty Port Life in China 1843-1943. John Murray, 1998.

Wood, a former curator of the Chinese collection at the British Library, tells the story of Shanghai from its mid-19th-century creation as an imperial prize forced from China to its formation as an international treaty port. She describes Shanghai’s cosmopolitanism, wealth and modernity, which was often in stark contrast to the poverty of much of the Chinese and European refugee population.

Dear Educator, 

Thank you for considering integrating the College of DuPage’s 2025-2026 Great Read Series selection into your classroom! Foul Lady Fortune by Chloe Gong

The following lessons are offered as suggestions for you to build on when considering integrating this novel into your classroom for your young audience. As a person who has served as an instructor at both the secondary and college levels, I sought to construct lessons that could be easily adapted to your teaching context and classroom needs. 

Please feel free to also refer to the other COD Great Read Series Resources on this website for further reading. I hope you and your students can join us at our various events that build toward Gong’s visit to COD March 9, 2026. 

Best, 

Alejandra Ortega

Lesson 1: Teaching As You Like It 

  • Objectives: Students will learn about William Shakespeare's language and play As You Like It.
  • Synopsis: Have students read As You Like It together. Then, explore the language and literary elements of the text. These lessons can then help inform connections made in Chloe Gong's Foul Lady Fortune.

Activities

  • Have students adopt "roles" of characters and read scenes aloud together in the form of a table read. This could be a great opportunity for students to get a feel of the language as they read as well as navigate any language questions.
  • Break students up into small groups and have them take on a portion of a scene from the play. Task the students with staging the play. This can help them imagine ways the dialogue could be performed. 
  • Task students with writing their own Shakespearean sonnets. They could do this through an individual writing assignment separate from the play or as a creative project where they write sonnets inspired by characters from As You Like It.

Grading/Assessment

Students could give a performance together, presenting their scenes in narrative order to their peers. Students can also give a presentation on their creative interpretations of Shakespeare's sonnets or host an "open mic event" featuring their work.

Resources

Lesson 2: Exploring Retellings

  •  Objectives: Students will learn about the complex nuances of retellings.
  • Synopsis: After learning about Shakespeare's As You Like It, students can examine the ways Chloe Gong not only revisit the classic play but also brings the narrative to a contemporary audience.

Activities

  • Have students rewrite moments from Shakespeare's As You Like It separate from Foul Lady Fortune. This could involve rewriting scenes from the original play or tasking students with imagining new scenes inspired by characters or plot points of the play.
  • Have students create a storyboard of Rosalind Lang's (Foul Lady Fortune) journey and a storyboard of Rosalind's (As You Like It) journey. (This could also be done for other character pairings like Orion Hong/Orion, Celia Lang/Celia, Oliver Hong/Oliver, Silus Wu/Silvius, Phoebe Hong/Phoebe/Hymen). Then task students with examining the many ways character journeys reflect each other or take new paths.

Grading/Assessment

Students can create a final product either individually, or in small groups informed by their story boards. Students could create a chart, presentation, art piece (such as a comics retelling), or writing assignment showing not only their understanding of retellings but also the ways in which Gong brings Shakespeare’s play to life. 

Resources

Lesson 3: Exploring Historical Connections

  • Objectives: Students will learn the ways literature can draw inspiration from historical events. 
  • Synopsis: Foul Lady Fortune reimagines historical events to build its world, shape its characters, and explore questions about identity and civic engagement. Drawing connections between literature and history can help students learn more about themes within the novel. 

Activities

  • Have students learn more about the September 18, 1931, Mukden Incident. Then have them examine Gong's retelling in the first scene of Foul Lady Fortune. Have them note where Gong blends history and fiction in the text. 
  • Have students learn more about the politics of 1930s China and Japan. Then have them examine the different reasons each character selected their political affiliations. Have students consider the effects of political ideologies on identity.

Grading/Assessment

Students could write a reflection on what they learned about these important historical events. Additionally, students could create a final project in this unit by identifying additional ways literature plays an important role to help us understand and interpret the past. This could be done as either an individual written assignment or a creative project. 

Resources

Foul Lady Fortune – A Film Companion

In keeping with the novel’s source material and the location of its setting, this series of companion films are drawn from a variety of countries and represent various points of view. Professor Brian Brems, co-department chair of Film Studies at College of DuPage

The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933, Capra)

An adaptation of a novel by Grace Zaring Stone and directed by Frank Capra, The Bitter Tea of General Yen concerns American missionary Megan Davis (Barbara Stanwyck) who falls into an affair with the mysterious and fearsome General Yen (Nils Asther) against the backdrop of the Chinese Civil War. The Swedish Asther portrays the General in an example of Hollywood cinema’s tendency to cast white actors in yellowface; the film is also an illustration of a strain of 1930s “Orientalism,” which regarded China and its culture with a combination of danger and exotic allure.      

The film is available to rent on Amazon.com.

Throne of Blood (1957, Kurosawa)

Director Akira Kurosawa’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth invites a critical question: is a text still Shakespeare without the original language? Set in feudal Japan, Throne of Blood’s samurai Washizu (Toshiro Mifune) eliminates his rivals one-by-one after receiving a prophecy from a forest spirit—not to mention a little nudging from his wife, Asaji (Isuzu Yamada). Kurosawa’s film translates many of Macbeth’s most famous moments into startling images; shots of trees lurching towards the castle in the film’s climax features frame-rate manipulation that gives them an uncanny, otherworldly menace. 

The film is available to stream on The Criterion Channel and HBO Max.

M. Butterfly (1993, Cronenberg)

Based on a play by Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang (who also wrote the screenplay), M. Butterfly is set in 1960s Beijing. Diplomat Rene Gallimard (Jeremy Irons) becomes obsessed with a performer in the opera Madame Butterfly, Song Liling (John Lone). Liling uses Gallimard’s desperate infatuation against him, spying on him for the Chinese government while carrying on an extended romantic relationship, all while allowing the diplomat to believe he is a woman. Traditional boundaries of love and gender collapse in this strange romance. 

The film is available to rent on Amazon.com. 

Shanghai Triad (1995, Yimou)

Set in Shanghai in 1930, Zhang Yimou’s gangster thriller takes place among the denizens of the Chinese underworld. Triad bosses, nightclub singers, double-crosses, shootouts—all the hallmarks of film noir and its descendant neo-noir are here. Like many cities in noir, Shanghai itself is a threatening, looming presence shaping the fates of inhabitants—the city is a space where cycles of violence and betrayal are perpetuated. 

The film is available to stream on Kanopy.

Irma Vep (1996, Assayas)

Hailing from contemporary French filmmaker Olivier Assayas, Irma Vep is a self-aware revisitation with the ghosts of cinema’s past; film director Rene Vidal (Jean-Pierre Leaud, French cinema royalty) is remaking the silent French serial Les Vampires (1915), focusing on its mysterious, vampish female lead, Irma Vep. To play Irma, Vidal has cast Hong Kong star Maggie Cheung, who plays a version of herself in this international examination of the roots of cinema and the anxieties of its modern practitioners. 

The film is available to stream on The Criterion Channel and HBO Max. 

Flowers of Shanghai (1998, Hou)

Taiwanese director Hou Hisao-hsien brings his typically deliberate style to this film set in a Shanghai brothel; based on the novel The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai by Han Bangqing, originally published in 1892, Hou’s camera takes a detached, observant point of view that nevertheless maintains a kind of stately elegance. Colorful and reserved, the film was shot entirely on a soundstage in Taiwan after permission to shoot in China was denied. As a result, like its female characters, the film is largely confined to the brothel where it is set.

The film is available to stream on The Criterion Channel. 

IP Man (2008, Yip)

The origins of Chinese martial arts, especially as practiced by the legendary Bruce Lee, are explored in this biopic of IP Man. Set mostly in the 1930s, the film follows the title character through Chinese cities and provinces occupied by the invading Japanese Imperial Army; martial arts skills become a tool of resistance against the Japanese soldiers occupying the Chinese homeland. The title character IP Man is played by Donnie Yen, who appears as Keanu Reeves’s blind rival Caine in John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023, Stahelski). 

The film is available to stream on Kanopy.

Dead Pigs (2018, Yan)

Directed by Chinese-American filmmaker Cathy Yan prior to her superhero venture Birds of Prey (2020), Dead Pigs combines bizarre imagery with a wicked sense of humor. Shot and set in Shanghai, the place of Yan’s birth, the film follows a group of the city’s residents as they deal with a particularly vexing environmental problem. Inspired by a real-life incident, the film offers a critical look at China’s modern economy and the damage it can cause.  

The film is available to stream on Kanopy. 

Hidden Blade (2023, Er)

Featuring a nesting structure, this wartime thriller follows the transitional period between World War II and its aftermath; the balance of power in China is undergoing massive change, and a series of players navigate the dangerous political waters through deception, espionage, and ruthless commitment to their own survival. Complex and non-linear, Hidden Blade rewards a close study.

The film is available to stream on Kanopy.