Use the essay question on the board Move the counter forward only when all of you have

completed a stage. Use your planners to show how well youre doing with the stage youre at.

Choose three topics for your paragraphs write them as branches of a mind-map starting something like: One reason why the Muslims were good learners was For each point, write three good bits of evidence. Leave space after each one. Get someone from another table to check that your evidence is genuinely strong. Choose one bit of evidence. On your whiteboard, write how it helped the Muslims learn. Get someone to check that you have linked the evidence to the point of the paragraph. Explain the link from every bit of evidence and add this onto your mind-map in a different colour. Write an overall sentence to complete that paragraph: Overall, this shows that (reason) was a (strong/weak/limited/very important/?) reason why the Muslims were such good learners. Rank your reasons 1-3 according to how important they were in supporting Islamic learning. Write your ideas why 1 is more important than 2 and why 2 is more important than 3. Get someone else to check everything you have already written. Start writing!