 There are many ways to craft a really powerful interesting and winning paragraph and one of these methods is using the Peter paragraph Now Peter is an acronym for the following point evidence technique Explanation and reader again. This acronym might sound like really complicated You know, it might sound very confusing but actually to be honest the Peter paragraph is one of a range of paragraphs that you can use that can be very effective in Achieving your aims of making your explanations really clear and also this is also a good way of Organizing your thoughts as you're writing out your responses be it for a language test or for a literature test now As you can see behind me I have put together an example Peter paragraph which I want to walk you through now remember that this example is just Taken from a language exercise. Okay, however, you can substitute some of these keywords for for example If you're given a Macbeth essay, you can substitute those keywords for Macbeth or if you're given an essay on whatever other text You can substitute it for that and indeed any other language extract Okay, but this is just one of the examples and this is taken from an exam extract Okay, more specifically by lady called Susan Hill. Okay, this appeared in a language paper now Let's quickly look at the question in my example before I show you how I applied the Peter method To answering this question and crafting my paragraph now the question was How does the opening of this extract create a tense atmosphere? Now? You will notice within this question. I've already underlined some words These are what we call keywords the most important bits of the question that you need to directly address in your answer to show Your teacher your examiner that you understand the assignment the keywords are opening Tense as well as atmosphere. Okay, these are the stuff That's not so obvious within the question that you need to directly address now as I mentioned Peter stands for point evidence technique explanation and readers. So let's start off with point. What does that mean? Point simply means you're answering the question directly and you're referring in your opening by directly referring to the key words This is the bits that you underlined from the question. So let's read through my example now This is my opening point The opening of this extract creates a tense ominous atmosphere ominous means terrifying scary As we can see the narrator feels secluded and alienated secluded alone and alienated Ill marsh house seems isolated. Hence. There's a powerful feeling of dread created now in my opening point I have Recated the key words the words opening tense and atmosphere here Okay, so I've talked about the opening of this extract a tense atmosphere The reason why I have restated these words is because I'm showing the examiner really clearly Hey, I understand this question I'm going to begin by addressing this question directly. You have to do that in your opening point Okay, so that's the P in my Peter paragraph now Let's look at the e in my Peter paragraph, which is evidence evidence simply means quote from the text to support Your opening point now. Let's look at my quotation We learned that speech marks the house felt like a ship at sea close speech marks in the extract Okay, so as you can see here, I have embedded my quotation, which is the house felt like a ship at sea Okay, so I've embedded this quotation within my evidence. Okay, again, as I mentioned evidence is you supporting your opening point Now let's look at the t in my Peter paragraph t as I mentioned stands for technique And what this means is you need to mention a technical term There's a variety use a really interesting form of alliteration similarly metaphor even a sentence type Okay, do they use an interesting simple sentence compound complex declarative and so on? Okay So now let's look at how I've talked about technique here The author's use of the simile speech marks like a sheep the ship Close speech marks emphasizes how turbulent and tumultuous tablet means violent tumultuous means unpredictable. Okay The weather was outside. Okay, so the author's use of the simile like a ship Emphasizes how turbulent and tumultuous the weather was outside as you can see here I have mentioned very clearly a technique which is simile Now let's move on to the e in my Peter's. This is the second e which is explanation Explanation simply means you need to explain the effect of this technique I will show you what I mean by explaining the effect of this technique This conveys the narrator's feeling of dread and terror Okay, so as you can see here the effect that I'm showing is what does this show us about the character in this story? Okay It seems they are alone in a vast house which seems unstable. Thus they feel vulnerable Now I've explained how this simile also is showing that the narrator is like totally alone. Okay, there's nobody around them All right, so I've said that the narrator feels dread and terror. That's the first Explanation but also I then expand on that by saying also the way the house is described It seems really unstable. So the narrator feels totally exposed totally vulnerable. That is my explanation I'm now explaining this technique a bit further However, I'm not yet done with my peter paragraph because I have to talk about the orbit the reader how this affects us as readers Of course, if it's a play you're talking about you need to talk about audience Okay So as I've mentioned in the reader bit you have to explain how this makes us as readers feel and link it back to the Question the key word in the question of course being opening tense and atmosphere. Okay, so I'm going to read my reader part now Thus we as readers develop a terrible feeling of foreboding foreboding means like a really bad feeling that something terrible is going to happen As we wonder if the narrator will be attacked Hence the author creates a tense atmosphere at the opening which immediately captivates us. Okay, so as you can see here I've mentioned tense atmosphere as well as this idea of it being at the opening I've restated the keywords in the question and also talked about how this affects us as readers. All right So I want to read the reader bit once more just to be clear Okay So thus we as readers develop a terrible feeling of foreboding as we wonder if the narrator will be attacked Hence the author creates a tense atmosphere at the opening which immediately captivates us captures our interest As readers. All right. So as I mentioned Peter simply stands for point evidence technique explanation and reader This is a really really useful paragraph structure that you can use in order to write really powerful paragraphs Which hopefully if you craft it really well Can actually really get you very close to a grade nine If not actually getting you deep in the grade nine territory for your english gcse essays That's it when it comes to peter paragraphs Do make sure you just literally take this and just apply it to whatever question you're using Just substitute, you know, some of these words for the keywords within your question. Thanks so much for listening