An Easy Passage: Julia Copus

This 26-slide PowerPoint explores Julia Copus’s poem ‘An Easy Passage’.

Beginning with introductory questions about growing up, pupils learn about Copus’s life and work before delving into the poem.

The lesson explores ideas about coming-of-age, precarity and danger, budding sexuality, and the impending world of adulthood looming over the poem. We discuss how Copus presents the speaker and other characters in the poem. Key symbols and images are also explored. Questions and discussion points are peppered throughout.

We look closely at the poem’s form, structure, rhythm and rhyme before pupils are given comprehension questions about the poem. Key themes and key vocabulary (to facilitate sophisticated analysis) are explored.

The PowerPoint includes ideas for poems that might work well for comparison with ‘An Easy Passage’, as well as an example of some brief introductory writing about the poem.

This resource (included as both PDF and PPT) is ideal for studying the poem in conjunction with the Pearson/Edexcel A level specification, but it is not limited to this purpose.