Welcome to the English Department at APS!
Hello, and welcome to AS/ A Level English Literature at Ashton Park School. If you’re here it’s because you like reading, discussing and writing about novels, short stories, drama and poetry. Well done! So do we.
There are three components to the course – poetry, drama and prose - and in poetry and prose you will be asked to compare texts in both your AS and A2 year. AS course texts include War of the Worlds, The Handmaid’s Tale, A Streetcar Named Desire and an anthology of modern poetry.
Annotate the poems thinking about the following question and fill in the comparison grid
Compare the ways in which the poets explore the shift from childhood to adulthood in An Easy Passage by Julia Copus and To my Nine-Year-Old self by Helen Dunmore.
To do this you should:
- annotate the poems using the guidance below
- fill in the comparison grid with your findings
General things to consider:
- The poems’ titles
- The content of the poems (what happens in them/ what they describe)
- What we learn about the theme of the shift from childhood to adulthood in each poem i.e. what aspects of this theme each poet explores and how they feel about these issues
- How language is used to communicate these attitudes e.g. though imagery/word choice/ sound effects
- How the structure of the poems is used to communicate these attitudes e.g. through how they start and end, how ideas progression, point-of-view, tense, enjambment, verse breaks, rhythm and rhyme
Specific points to consider: An Easy Passage
- Think about the deeper significance of the word ‘halfway’ in the first line to the concerns and structure of the poem as a whole
- How is balance/poise (in/down, indoors/outdoors) used to represent to the shift from childhood to adulthood?
- Look closely at the descriptions of the two girls. What does the poet emphasise? How would you describe them? How does this differ from the other woman in the poem – there are three in total.
- Why do you think the poet chose to write this poem in the present tense?
- Perhaps the most arresting word in the poem is ‘armaments’. Why does the poet use this metaphor in relation to the girls?
Specific points to consider: To my Nine Year Old Self
- Look at the verbs that relate to the girl and those that relate to her adult self. What do they tell us about the differences between the two? What do you think this suggests about the narrator’s attitude towards growing up?
- As well as the verbs, look at other physical details in the poem. How does Dunmore use them to re-create a child’s world?
- How does the poet’s use of pronouns enact the relationship between child and adult?
- Why do you think the poet chose to set the encounter with her childhood self in summer?
To discover more about the subject at a higher level:
- This website is excellent: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/4/17/
- Also consider literary criticism web guides for key texts from