Year 11 · Extended response writing · Lesson 3 of 4
Body Paragraphs That Analyse
PEAL and “This Does That” · the Great Fire of Rome, AD 64
Hubert Robert, The Fire of Rome, 1785 (detail). Public domain.
Do Now · from memory · 4 minutes
Five questions
- 1Name the three parts of our thesis formula.Concession (Although…) + judgement of degree + reason (because…).
- 2Which ancient writer wrote about 150 years after the fire?Cassius Dio.
- 3What does a roadmap sentence do?Previews the line of argument — without “This essay will…”.
- 4What is a scapegoat?Someone blamed for a wrong they did not do, to protect someone else.
- 5Turn into a noun: “The fire spread rapidly.”“The rapid spread of the fire…”
Whole-class feedback · from your sticky notes
What’s missing? Fix it.
“Nero started the fire.”
No degree, no reason, no concession.
“This essay will discuss Nero and the fire.”
An announcement — no judgement at all.
“Nero was partly responsible.”
Degree ✓ — but responsible for what, and why?
Then: three real (anonymous) theses from our class thesis map — on the board.
Learning intention & success criteria
write analytical body paragraphs that use evidence to advance our line of argument.
- P write a topic sentence that makes an arguable claim
- E select and embed evidence, naming its source
- A analyse with “This Does That” and weigh reliability
- L link back with a judgement of degree
PEAL · a scaffold, not a cage
| Move | Its job |
|---|---|
| P Point | An arguable claim that answers the question — never a fact. |
| E Evidence | Specific, accurate, embedded and attributed (who + where). |
| A Analysis | What the evidence shows (This Does That) + how reliable it is (when, who, why). |
| L Link | A judgement of degree that answers the question. |
Strong writers cycle E → A → E → A before the Link. The model you’re about to see does exactly that.
I do · deconstruct the model · worksheet Part A
PThe circumstances of the fire’s outbreak point more convincingly to accident than to imperial design. ETacitus records that the blaze began ‘amid the shops containing inflammable wares’ at the end of the Circus Maximus, where the wind drove it through ‘narrow winding passages and irregular streets’ (Annals 15.38). AThis detail situates the disaster within the ordinary hazards of a crowded, timber-built city, rendering a deliberate cause unnecessary to explain its scale. EMoreover, Nero was at Antium when the fire broke out, and returned only as it approached his own residence, which it then consumed (Annals 15.39). AAn emperor plotting to clear land for a new palace would hardly have allowed his existing one to burn, and, as Barrett observes, the nearly full moon made that night a poor choice for covert arson. Significantly, even Tacitus, no admirer of Nero, concedes that the cause ‘is uncertain’. LOn the evidence of its origins, then, Nero bears little, if any, responsibility for igniting the Great Fire.
I do · the Seldon method · “This Does That”
Suetonius: Nero sang the ‘Sack of Ilium’, exulting in ‘the beauty of the flames’
Suetonius’s image of Nero singing ‘the Sack of Ilium’ while exulting in ‘the beauty of the flames’ constructs the emperor as a performer indifferent to his people’s suffering, reinforcing the senators’ portrait of a tyrant and transforming rumour into apparent fact.
Borrow these · worksheet Part B and C
Basic: suggests · shows · highlights · reflects · conveys
Advanced: reveals · reinforces · implies · constructs · establishes
Extended: frames · distorts · privileges · undermines · exposes
Neutral: records · reports · states
Doubtful: claims · alleges · insists · asserts
Conceding: concedes · acknowledges · admits
Historians: argues · contends · maintains
Suetonius records that… vs Suetonius alleges that… — one word signals your evaluation.
Embed, don’t drop
Dio says Nero did it. ‘He secretly sent out men who pretended to be drunk.’ This shows he started it.
Cassius Dio alleges that Nero ‘secretly sent out men who pretended to be drunk’ to start fires (Roman History 62.16), a claim that tells us more about Nero’s later reputation than about AD 64.
Embedded = lead-in + short quotation + reference + analysis, in one sentence.
Hinge question · 1, 2, 3 or 4 fingers
Which sentence ANALYSES rather than describes?
- 1Suetonius says Nero sang while Rome burned.
- 2Suetonius was a Roman writer born around AD 70.
- 3Suetonius’s image of Nero singing as Rome burned constructs a tyrant indifferent to suffering, reinforcing the senators’ hostile portrait of the emperor.
- 4Nero was a bad emperor.
3 says what the evidence does. 1 describes · 2 is a fact · 4 is an unsupported opinion.
We do · worksheet Part D · what’s wrong?
Suetonius says that Nero started the fire. ‘He set fire to the city so openly that several ex-consuls did not venture to lay hands on his chamberlains.’ Nero also sang a song about Troy while Rome was burning. This shows that Nero was a bad emperor and he started the fire. Nero was a very cruel emperor who also killed his mother.
- 1Opens with what a source says, not an arguable Point.
- 2Dropped quote — no lead-in, no analysis.
- 3Describes (“Nero also sang…”) instead of analysing.
- 4Trusts Suetonius without weighing reliability.
- 5“Killed his mother” is off-question; no Link with a degree.
We do · joint construction · I scribe, you compose
Rebuild it as PEAL: the hostile sources
P What’s our arguable claim about these sources?
E Which words of Suetonius and Dio will we embed?
A What do they do? How reliable — when, who, why?
L So, how responsible does this make Nero?
“The case for Nero’s guilt rests almost entirely on sources whose distance from the event and hostility to the emperor undermine their reliability.”
You do · worksheet Part E · 15 minutes
Argument C: Nero’s conduct after the fire
P and E are written for you. Complete the Analysis and Link with the frames.
Full PEAL with at least two sources, one This-Does-That sentence and one reliability judgement.
Three sources + one historian + a concession: does Nero’s relief work (Source B) complicate the case?
Sources B, C, D, E, F and Barrett (H1). Press K for the timer.
Self-check · 3 minutes
Colour-code your paragraph — and write the letter
topic sentence
evidence
analysis
link
A missing colour is the move you add before Lesson 4.
Exit ticket
One “This Does That” sentence
Choose any evidence card from Lesson 1 and write one This-Does-That sentence about it.
Next lesson: the conclusion — then a 25-minute timed write. Bring your introduction and paragraph.