PEERing into paragraph structure
How creating booklets made me rethink how I teach paragraphs.
Over the last few years our department has rewritten our GCSE lesson materials to create a series of booklets.
A feature of each booklet has been at least one exam technique lesson on how to answer a question that will come up in the exam.
This has led me to reflect on how I teach exam technique to my students and to consider what improvements could be made.
When it comes to essay writing (as opposed to source evaluation, which is a whole other issue!) this process of reflection led me to two questions:
How are PEE paragraphs really supposed to work?
How can I get GCSE students to move beyond PEE paragraphs and get them ready for A-level?
I have been advising students to write PEE paragraphs for over a decade and while each of the subsections - point, evidence, explain - made sense on their own (obviously you need some evidence, right?) I was always a bit confused about the sequencing of the sub-sections.
I mean, the paragraph ought to start with its ‘point’ - fine, I’m not going to argue with that - but why does the evidence come before the explanation? Surely you need to explain your point, then provide some evidence for it?
In fact that was how I taught PEE paragraphs to students; as ‘point, explain, evidence’ rather than ‘point, evidence, explain’.
But when students wrote PEE paragraphs for me I came across two problems:
A lack of factual detail in the evidence sentence - probably quite a common occurrence for many history teachers
The explain sentence was…missing!
The first of these problems is (fairly) easy to solve with lots of quizzing and drilling to improve the recall of factual knowledge.
The second was more concerning. Students were making their point then citing a fact to prove it. In their eyes that was job done.
Point + Proof = Argument. Right, sir?
No.
I had visions of examiners giving my students a big fat ZERO for AO2 analysis. What was I going to do?
The solution I settled on was this:
The point of the explanation is not to develop the point, but to explain how the evidence supports the point.
An example.
Q. Was Emperor Justinian’s reign a success?
It can be argued that Justinian was a successful emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, otherwise known as the Byzantine Empire. This argument can be supported by Justinian’s capture of Rome in 536. The capture of Rome could be considered evidence of success because the city had previously been the capital of the Western Roman Empire and so regaining control over it was important to the Romans of the Byzantine Empire.
In this very simple paragraph, the point is raised - that Justinian was a success. Evidence for this is then introduced - the capture of Rome. And finally the link between the evidence and the point is made - Rome wasn’t just any old city, it was the former Roman capital.
Now I had the theory to teach PEE paragraphs more effectively and I could do this with students from Year 7 and upwards.
But how do I ‘move them on’ when I reach KS4?
Well, to me, the next logical step up is to start evaluating the argument made in the paragraph.
At KS5 I need students to write a thematic paragraph in which two arguments are made (one for and one against) followed by an evaluation of which argument is more convincing. Therefore, asking KS4 students to make just one argument then evaluate whether they find it convincing or unconvincing seemed the natural stepping stone.
The practical means of doing this was to include a ‘Review’ sentence at the end of the PEE paragraph - hence, PEER paragraph.
The review sentence states whether the argument is convincing or unconvincing and provides evidence to support that judgement. Let’s look at an example paragraph from a Year 10 essay on the thematic Crime & Punishment unit.
Q. ‘Retribution was the main factor affecting methods of punishment in the Medieval period’. How far do you agree?
It can be argued that retribution affected punishments in the Medieval period. This argument can be supported by the use of execution. Execution could be considered evidence of retribution because it inflicts death upon the accused as a form of revenge for the crime they have committed. In review, this is a convincing argument because in the Medieval period there were no prisons, so execution was the most common form of punishment after fines.
The PEE and PEER paragraphs are now the basis for much of the extended writing our Year 11s do for their Edexcel GCSE.
In fact these techniques are used in questions that account for 88 marks, which is just over half of the 168 mark total for the whole GCSE.
It goes without saying, therefore, that these techniques are fundamental to our teaching at KS4.
Takeaways:
We teach PEE paragraphs at KS3.
A PEE paragraph is sequenced as point, evidence, explain where the role of the explain sentence(s) is to explain why the evidence supports the point.
At KS4 we still use the PEE paragraph for some questions e.g. Edexcel’s 12 mark ‘Explain why’ question.
But in essays we add a review sentence to make PEER paragraphs. These include an evaluation of the paragraph’s argument with some evidence to support it.
The review sentence isn’t advertised as a necessity to get a passing grade but as the ‘icing on the cake’ for those aiming at grade 8/9.
It also helps those students bridge the big gap that exists between KS4 and KS5.