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❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
🎒 Empty
✨ None
🏝️ Robinson Crusoe — PEE
🏝️ Robinson Crusoe — Point · Evidence · Explanation
⚓ Cast Ashore
🏝️ Island Adventure
⛵ Voyage Home
1
⏱ 4 min
📖 Your Story Begins…
It is 1632, and your name is Robinson Crusoe.
Your father has always warned you against exploring the world, but you are not very good at listening. The sea is calling to you, and you board a ship to Africa!
What could possibly go wrong?
Your father has always warned you against exploring the world, but you are not very good at listening. The sea is calling to you, and you board a ship to Africa!
What could possibly go wrong?
🧑🏫 Tutor:
Welcome aboard, sailor. Today we sharpen the most useful tool in your English chest: PEE — Point · Evidence · Explanation. We use it to write good answers about any text.
You begin with 5 lives. Wrong answers can cost you one — but if you lose them all, a new friend may yet save you. (You'll see.)
Welcome aboard, sailor. Today we sharpen the most useful tool in your English chest: PEE — Point · Evidence · Explanation. We use it to write good answers about any text.
You begin with 5 lives. Wrong answers can cost you one — but if you lose them all, a new friend may yet save you. (You'll see.)
PEE
Point · Evidence · Explanation. We use it to write good answers about any text.
🌊 Set sail at once
The harbour lights fade behind you. The wind freshens. The sea is yours…
2
⏱ 8 min
📖 East Coast — by Night
Your ship is falling apart in the gusting wind and rising sea. With some other sailors, you escape in a small boat, trying to find the shore in the darkness.
After we had rowed, or rather driven about a league and a half, as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us. It took us with such a fury, that it overset the boat at once; and separating us as well from the boat as from one another, gave us no time to say, "O God!" for we were all swallowed up in a moment.
📝 The question: How is the wave shown as powerful?
You will need to use all your strength to swim ashore safely — any mistakes will cost you a life!
You will need to use all your strength to swim ashore safely — any mistakes will cost you a life!
⚓ Question 1
Is "How is the wave shown as powerful?" a retrieval question or an inference question?
⚓ Question 2
Click two words below that you would choose as evidence of the wave's power.
After we had rowed, or rather driven about a league and a half, as we reckoned it, a raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us. It took us with such a fury, that it overset the boat at once; and separating us as well from the boat as from one another, gave us no time to say, "O God!" for we were all swallowed up in a moment.
Picked 0 of 2
3
⏱ 9 min
🧑🏫 Tutor:
To write a full answer to a question like "How is the wave shown as powerful?", you will need to use PEE. Three waves are rolling towards you — click each to see what they stand for.
To write a full answer to a question like "How is the wave shown as powerful?", you will need to use PEE. Three waves are rolling towards you — click each to see what they stand for.
Click to reveal
P
POINT
Click to reveal
E
EVIDENCE
Click to reveal
E
EXPLANATION
4
⏱ 25 min
🏝️ The Sole Survivor
Congratulations — you have made it ashore. After celebrating, you realise with a sinking heart that you are completely alone.
Click a pin on the map below to enter that waypoint. Pins unlock one at a time, in order — finish each to light up the next.
Click a pin on the map below to enter that waypoint. Pins unlock one at a time, in order — finish each to light up the next.
🗺️ The Emerald Serpent — Adventure Map
drag to rotate · scroll to zoom · click a pin
⚓ Loading the island…
Locked
Available
Current
Completed
1
The Wreck
CURRENT
⚓ Salvage
Parts of the broken ship remain above the sea, and you decide to build a raft to try and find anything that might help you survive…
I now began to consider that I might yet get a great many things out of the ship which would be useful to me, and particularly some of the rigging and sails, and such other things as might come to land. And as I knew that the first storm that blew must necessarily break her all in pieces, I resolved to set all other things apart till I had got everything out of the ship that I could get. When I came back I found no sign of any visitor; only there sat a creature like a wild cat upon one of the chests, which, when I came towards it, ran away a little distance, and then stood still.
🧑🏫 Tutor:
Remember — your point must directly answer the question. Can you find the wrong one? If you can get this right, you may gain supplies and a life!
Remember — your point must directly answer the question. Can you find the wrong one? If you can get this right, you may gain supplies and a life!
⚓ How is Robinson's quick thinking shown here?
Read the paragraph carefully and choose the answer that does not directly answer the question.
2
The Camp
LOCKED
With infinite labour, I carried all my riches, all my provisions, ammunition, and stores; and I made a large tent, which to preserve me from the rains that in one part of the year are very violent there, I made double — one smaller tent within, and one larger tent above it.
🧑🏫 Tutor:
The question: How does the writer show how important Robinson's resources are to him?
We will write the POINT together, in three steps.
The question: How does the writer show how important Robinson's resources are to him?
We will write the POINT together, in three steps.
Step 1 — Choose your evidence
Click two words from the passage that show how important his belongings are to him.
With infinite labour, I carried all my riches, all my provisions, ammunition, and stores; and I made a large tent, which to preserve me from the rains that in one part of the year are very violent there.
Picked 0 of 2
Step 2 — Explore the connotations
infinite
Connotations:
endless effort
exhaustion
determination
desperation to protect what he has
riches
Your turn — type two connotations of riches:
Step 3 — Write the point
Combine your ideas into one clear sentence. Remember to use the words of the question! Just summarise your inferences — no need to go into detail yet.
Start your sentence like this:
"The writer shows how important Robinson's resources are to him by describing the enormous effort he makes to carry them, and by presenting them as…"
"The writer shows how important Robinson's resources are to him by describing the enormous effort he makes to carry them, and by presenting them as…"
Click to speak
🌩️ Your Turn — entirely on your own this time.
Write the point for your answer to the following question.
Write the point for your answer to the following question.
At the same time it happened, after I had laid my scheme for the setting up my tent, and making the cave, that a storm of rain falling from a thick, dark cloud, a sudden flash of lightning happened, and after that a great clap of thunder.
How is the storm's power shown here?
Two words you choose · their connotations · a summary point using the question's words.
Your two words:
Connotations:
Your point:
Click to speak
🏕️ Camp made. It is time to build your home on this island. You will need many supplies. Time to go searching…
3
The Discovery
LOCKED
Now I began to take courage, and to peep abroad again, for I had not stirred for three days and nights, so that I began to starve for provisions; for I had little or nothing within doors but some barley-cakes and water; then I knew that my goats wanted to be milked too…
🧑🏫 Tutor — Evidence
Evidence also requires some searching. You must find the best quotations that support your inference.
For example, if I wanted to prove my inference that Robinson is nervous, I would not choose "I knew that my goats wanted to be milked too" — that evidence does not support my point! Instead, I should choose "peep", which has connotations of fear or anxiety.
Evidence also requires some searching. You must find the best quotations that support your inference.
For example, if I wanted to prove my inference that Robinson is nervous, I would not choose "I knew that my goats wanted to be milked too" — that evidence does not support my point! Instead, I should choose "peep", which has connotations of fear or anxiety.
📜 Key tip: Only use what you need to directly prove your inference — do not write overly long quotations.
🛤️ Two pages — open and complete both
Click each card below. One teaches you to embed a quotation; the other tests how carefully you can copy one. You can move between them freely.
Write a Diary Entry
Weigh the Evil against the Good, then learn to embed a quotation.
Not started
A Chilling Discovery…
Find something on the sand you should not have found.
Not started
📓 The Diary: Robinson sets out the Evil and Good of his situation. Click each red parchment on the left to see the matching Good on the right.
Evil
Good
I am cast upon a horrible, desolate island, void of all hope of recovery.
But I am alive; and not drowned, as all my ship's company were.
But I am alive; and not drowned, as all my ship's company were.
I am singled out and separated, as it were, from all the world, to be miserable.
But I am singled out, too, from all the ship's crew, to be spared from death.
But I am singled out, too, from all the ship's crew, to be spared from death.
I have no soul to speak to or relieve me.
But God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore, that I have got out as many necessary things as will either supply my wants or enable me to supply myself.
But God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore, that I have got out as many necessary things as will either supply my wants or enable me to supply myself.
📝 Embedded Quotations — three stages.
Question: How does Robinson feel about being alive? Use the buttons below to step through how a quotation is embedded into a sentence.
Question: How does Robinson feel about being alive? Use the buttons below to step through how a quotation is embedded into a sentence.
Step 1 — Choose your quotation
From the diary, pick the word that best proves Robinson feels saved by chance:
miraculously
Step 2 — Write the sentence using the quotation naturally
Slot the word inside a full sentence — no marks yet:
Robinson feels that he was miraculously saved from death.
Step 3 — Add the quotation marks
Wrap your evidence in single apostrophes:
Robinson feels that he was 'miraculously' saved from death.
Longer phrases work too:
He also felt that 'God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore'.
(Notice the "But" was dropped — it is hard to embed and not useful evidence.)
He also felt that 'God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore'.
(Notice the "But" was dropped — it is hard to embed and not useful evidence.)
Step 1 of 3
Sea Chest tip: apostrophes vs speech marks Click to open…
Use single apostrophes ' ' when writing quotations, not double speech marks " ". Speech marks are for what characters say out loud — quotations from the text take single marks.
🪶 Your turn — How do we know Robinson feels lonely? (open question)
Write one sentence using a short embedded quotation.
Click to speak
👣 A Print in the Sand
It happened one day, about noon, going towards your boat…
…I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition. I listened, I looked round me, but I could hear nothing, nor see anything… after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man. Nor is it possible to describe what strange, unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.
⚓ Useful evidence — or not?
Question: How does Robinson feel upon discovering the footprint? Which quotation would be the best evidence?
📜 Precision matters. You must copy the quotation exactly as it is written in the text. No changing words. No spelling slips!
⚓ Which is misspelled or wrongly copied?
There may be more than one — check carefully.
4
The Rescue
LOCKED
⚔️ The Englishmen's Landing Place
You are out exploring on the far end of the island, when you find that you are indeed not alone on this island!
You see a group of sailors, being held prisoner by what look like dangerous and wild men… You decide to rescue them at all costs!
You see a group of sailors, being held prisoner by what look like dangerous and wild men… You decide to rescue them at all costs!
With this resolution I entered the wood, and, with all possible wariness and silence, I marched till I came to the skirts of the wood on the side which was next to them, only that one corner of the wood lay between me and them…
🧑🏫 Tutor — Explanation
Now for the most interesting part of PEE — Explanation. This is where you explain your evidence and how it links to your inference. Do you remember when we planned out the connotations of words? That work pays off here.
Now for the most interesting part of PEE — Explanation. This is where you explain your evidence and how it links to your inference. Do you remember when we planned out the connotations of words? That work pays off here.
💥 You open fire upon the enemy!
A great shout, and then a louder one…
'I fired among the amazed wretches… only two drop; but so many were wounded that they ran about yelling and screaming like mad creatures.'
📖 Example: How does the writer show the fear of the men?
P · POINT
The writer shows fear by comparing the men to animals, and describing how much noise they make.
E · EVIDENCE
The 'wretches' run around 'yelling and screaming like mad creatures'.
✨ Useful sentence starters for explanation
- The word 'mad' emphasises how they are crazed, filled with fear and confusion.
- The phrase 'yelling and screaming' suggests that they are terrified and acting uncontrollably, highlighting how they have descended into complete panic.
Sea Chest tip: better verbs than "this shows" Click to open…
Avoid 'this shows' over and over. Try these instead:
suggests · highlights · implies · emphasises · illustrates · demonstrates
For now, all you need to explain are the connotations of the words you have chosen. In future lessons, we will explore the explaining part of PEE more — it is one of the biggest parts of English!
🛡️ You rescue a prisoner, just before he is killed!
Can you write the explanation part of this paragraph?
'The two butchers who were just going to work with him had left him at the surprise of our first fire, and fled in a terrible fright to the seaside, and had jumped into a canoe…'
How does the writer show the cruelty of the wild men?
P · POINT
The writer shows the cruelty of the wild men by describing them as violent and treating humans like animals.
E · EVIDENCE
Two of the wild men are called 'butchers'.
Your turn below — write the X · EXPLANATION that unpacks why "butchers" is so cruel.
🪶 Your turn — write the explanation
Use a sentence starter: The word '____' emphasises… It may also suggest…
Click to speak
5
⏱ 6 min
⚓ Last Test of Your Skills
Five questions about what you have learned. Each wrong answer costs a life — choose carefully.
1. What does P in PEE stand for?
2. What must your Point do?
3. Which is the best evidence if I want to prove Robinson feels lonely?
4. When quoting from the text, you should…
5. In Explanation, you should focus on…