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What–How–Why paragraphs, and when to take the frame away

A shared paragraph frame gets every student writing analysis from the first lesson. The harder part is removing it again, which is what AQA’s examiners have asked for in report after report.

· 4 minute read

Every lesson in our schemes ends with the same kind of writing: one analytical paragraph, built in three parts.

  • What: a clear point that answers the question.
  • How: a short embedded quotation, the method named, and one word zoomed in on.
  • Why: the effect on the reader and the writer’s purpose, with context where it explains that purpose.

The parts follow the first three assessment objectives: a personal response supported by quotation (AO1), analysis of the writer’s methods with the right terms (AO2), and the link between the text and its context (AO3).

Here is the model paragraph from Lesson 3 of the A Christmas Carol scheme. The question is “How does Dickens present Scrooge as cut off from other people?”

What
Dickens presents Scrooge as a man who has deliberately shut himself away from other people.
How
The narrator describes him as “secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster”. The repeated “and” piles up words of isolation, while the simile compares Scrooge to a creature that clamps its shell tight against the world.
Why
Dickens makes the coldness come from “within him”, so readers understand that Scrooge’s loneliness is a choice. Yet an oyster can hold a pearl, so the image quietly suggests that a better man is locked inside, waiting to be opened by the spirits.
Model paragraph from A Christmas Carol, Lesson 3: Meet Scrooge

Why a frame helps

A frame takes one problem off the table. A student working out what Dickens is doing with an oyster doesn’t also have to work out what an analytical paragraph looks like.

The Education Endowment Foundation’s guidance on special educational needs calls scaffolding “a metaphor for temporary support that is removed when it is no longer required”. The Department for Education’s framework for new teachers says guides and scaffolds “should be gradually removed as pupil expertise increases”. The important word in both is temporary.

What the examiners warn about

AQA’s reports have described the same problem for years: a frame that was meant to come off, left on.

In 2019 examiners reported that “pre-prepared structures and sentence starters often seem to hinder students’ expression of their views”, often appearing as “tacked-on sentences at the end of a paragraph”.

The 2022 report on the Shakespeare question was more direct:

“The PEE approach can often restrict students into adopting a Level 2 ‘supported’ style, typically by presenting a quotation and then attempting to break it down at word-level rather than linking to deeper meanings and ideas.”

In 2023 they described students “clearly following a set model for every paragraph”: a quotation, a focus on one word from it, and “a very generalised contextual statement, for example ‘A Jacobean audience would…’”. Ofsted’s 2024 English report made the same point about writing in general: “Writing weaknesses are often masked unhelpfully by narrow approaches, such as extensive use of PEE (point, evidence, explanation) paragraphs.”

The examiners are not against structure. The 2025 report says: “Some responses do rely on a rigid, formulaic structure, and that is appropriate for some students.” The trouble starts when the frame never changes.

Where What–How–Why can go wrong

Our frame contains both of the habits the examiners describe: zooming in on one word, and context. Each needs watching.

The zoom is there to open up meaning. In the model paragraph, “solitary” and the oyster lead straight to Scrooge choosing to shut people out. A zoom that only labels a word (“solitary is an adjective”) is the word-level break-down the 2022 report describes.

Context belongs in Why only when it explains the writer’s purpose. The Strengthening checklist for Lesson 3 asks students to “link to Dickens’s purpose as well as Scrooge’s personality”, and the teacher notes list “adding context at the end instead of linking it to Dickens’s purpose” as a misconception to watch for. A sentence about Victorian readers bolted onto every paragraph is the tacked-on sentence of the 2019 report.

Taking the frame away

In the schemes, the three levels of support are also the stages of taking the frame away. Everyone answers the same question.

  • Securing (aiming for a 4) has sentence starters for each part, a worked example on a different quotation, a word bank and a choice of quotations.
  • Strengthening (aiming for grades 5 to 6) swaps the starters for prompts, a paragraph planner and a checklist.
  • Soaring (aiming for grades 7 to 9) has no sentence starters: a debatable statement to argue with, prompts towards alternative readings, and precise analytical verbs.

This is the same Lesson 3 task at each level:

Securing

aiming for a 4

Sentence starters

What
Dickens presents Scrooge as ____.
How
Dickens writes ____. The word ____ suggests ____.
Why
Dickens wants his readers to ____ because ____.

Strengthening

aiming for grades 5 to 6

Prompts

What
Make a clear point that answers the question.
How
Choose a quotation. Name the method (simile, list, imagery) and zoom in on one word.
Why
What did Dickens want readers in 1843 to think about people like Scrooge? Use what you learned about the Poor Law in Lesson 1.

Soaring

aiming for grades 7 to 9

A statement to argue with

Scrooge chose his isolation. How far do you agree?

Write two paragraphs. In the second, give an alternative reading that begins with Alternatively.

Students move up as soon as they are ready, often within the lesson. The Lesson 3 notes move anyone who completes the Securing frame in ten minutes on to the Strengthening prompts for a second paragraph.

By the end of a unit, What, How and Why should be three questions students ask themselves, answered in whatever order the argument needs. A strong paragraph can open with the writer’s purpose and work back to the words.

Beyond the paragraph

The top level of AQA’s mark scheme asks for a “critical, exploratory, conceptualised response to task and whole text”. That is a quality of the whole essay, and the reports keep pointing to one habit that helps. The 2023 report found that “those students who started their response with a thesis generally did very well, because they had established a conceptual line of enquiry for their response”.

What–How–Why builds the paragraphs. The thesis decides what they are for. Our free Thesis Statement Builder works with any Literature question.

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