Understanding ideas of love and relationships in Ewing’s ‘Origin Story’
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can explore ideas of love and relationships in Ewing’s ‘Origin Story’.
Key learning points
- The speaker of the poem is most likely Ewing herself, sharing her own personal experience.
- The poem explores different types of love: romantic, familial, and love linked to self-identity.
- Arguably the poem subverts the conventions of a love poem, offering a realistic presentation.
- The title foregrounds the importance of placing value on Black lived experiences and reimagining narratives.
- Ewing has said that her work falls under the genre of Afrofuturism.
Keywords
Lineage - the members of a person's family who are directly related to that person
Familial - related to family or the relationships between family members
Origin - the beginning or cause of something
Idealised - shown as perfect or better than it really is
Afrofuturism - a genre that centers Black history and culture and incorporates science-fiction, technology, and futuristic elements
Common misconception
This poem doesn’t seem like a typical love poem because it doesn’t present love as happy or ideal. Most love poetry tends to focus on idealised romantic love.
Ewing shows love as fragile but meaningful. By exploring romantic, familial, and self-love, she challenges idealised love poetry and redefines what love can look like—real, complex, and powerful.
Teacher tip
You may wish to share some current examples of images, videos, music, or other artworks from popular culture that belong to the Afrofuturism genre. This can help with understanding the genre.
Equipment
You will need a copy of the Eduqas 2025 Anthology for this lesson.
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which of these is NOT typical of love poetry?
Q2.If something is not conforming to what is usually or typically done or expected, it is...
Q3.Match the different types of context to the correct definition.
The time period and events happening when the poem was written.
How a text fits with other poems, genres, or traditions in literature.
Details about the poet’s life and personal experiences.
Q4.What is an “origin story”?
Q5.In poetry, what does the term “speaker” mean?
Q6.What does the concept of “lineage” primarily refer to?
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Is this statement true or false? Eve L. Ewing is also a writer for Marvel comics like ‘Black Panther’ and ‘Ironheart’.
Q2.In the poem 'Origin Story', what does the title primarily suggest?
Q3.Which answer best explains the use of the comic book image to describe love in the poem 'Origin Story'?
Q4.Match the following terms with their correct definitions:
related to family relationships
shown as perfect or better than real
a genre combining Black culture and futuristic themes
the beginning or cause of something
Q5.Which words from the poem 'Origin Story' best connect to the theme of cultural identity and celebrating Black heritage?
Q6.In the poem 'Origin Story', what key feature of Afrofuturism could the poem’s metaphor about love surviving through time best represent?
To help you plan your 10 English lesson on: Understanding ideas of love and relationships in Ewing’s ‘Origin Story’, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 10 English lesson on: Understanding ideas of love and relationships in Ewing’s ‘Origin Story’, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 English lessons from the Poetry anthology (Assessment from summer 2027) unit, dive into the full secondary English curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.