What is a PEEL / TEEL paragraph? Analytical paragraphs follow a predictable shape so the reader can follow your thinking. P/T — Point or Topic sentence: the claim this paragraph will prove. E — Evidence: a short, embedded quotation. E — Explain: how the language in the quotation creates meaning or effect. L — Link: return to the question or the main argument.

Extract (original): My grandmother's hands were maps. Every scar was a road she'd travelled: the burn from the kettle in 1962, the white seam across her thumb from a fishing line in Eden. When she held my face, I could feel the whole country in her palms.

Model paragraph: In this extract, the author uses an extended metaphor to present the grandmother's body as a record of lived history. The opening statement, 'My grandmother's hands were maps', establishes the comparison directly, and it is then developed through the image of each scar as 'a road she'd travelled'. By linking physical marks to specific places and dates, 'the kettle in 1962' and 'a fishing line in Eden', the writer suggests that experience is written on the body and can be read by those who love her. The final sentence, in which the narrator feels 'the whole country in her palms', extends the metaphor to its largest scale, positioning the grandmother as the embodiment of place and belonging. Through this sustained metaphor, the author invites readers to see ageing not as decline but as the accumulation of a life's journeys.