(1.4) Day 6: Cohesion, Coherence, and Unity

Objectives: Students will be able to...

• Identify three characteristics of a good paragraph (cohesion, coherence, and unity)
• Identify and practice 5 different strategies to improve the cohesion (and subsequently coherence) of a paragraph (Pronouns, Parallel structure, Transition signals, Old/New information pattern, and Repetition of the key words/phrases)
• Understand the distinction between Cohesion and Coherence
• self-evaluate presence/absence of cohesion, coherence, and unity in their own writing and propose revisions based on the new knowledge from lesson

Part I: Warm-up (15 min) 2:00-2:15

Read the paragraphs in slide 2 and tell us which one you prefer and why?

COHERENCE/COHESION PPT

Part II: Review Cohesive Devices (30 min) 2:15-2:45

There are a variety of ways to create cohesion between sentences. This brief handout discusses some of the most frequent strategies you can use to connect your ideas

COHERENCE/COHESION HANDOUT
WRITERS HELP TRANSITION WORDS

Covers the following topics:

• parallel structures
• old/new information
• practice on cohesive devices
• paragraph rewrite

** If review is needed, here is the link to complete 500 level on Cohesive Devices 

SHORT ONLINE QUIZ
READING (s&w) 

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Part V: Analysis of Diagnostic (20 min) 2:45-3:05

• Copy and paste one of the body paragraphs of your diagnostic essay into a word document and analyze it asking yourself the following questions:
• Are there any sentences that are off topic?
• Have I used pronouns to link my sentences to each other in this paragraph?
• Have I used or tried to use parallel structure? How successful was I?
• What are the key words in this paragraph? Have I repeated them sufficiently?
• Are there any transition signals used in this paragraph? How well do they help link the ideas?
• Have I used Old/New information pattern? If so, how does it help achieve cohesion?
• Overall, is this paragraph unified, cohesive, and coherent?
• Write a paragraph critiquing this paragraph considering the focus questions above. Then, rewrite that paragraph to make it more unified, cohesive, and coherent.

Part VI: Worksheet on Articles?? (15 min) 3:05-3:20
Time pending, I will have us look to some common errors in article writing and complete a worksheet together.

Lecture Materials:

COHERENCE PPT

COHESION?COHERENT HANDOUT (key)

Supplemental:

TRANSITION AND ORGANIZATION PATTERS