Student example

1. Student example • Nick realized that Gatsby was accomplished in life, even though the general consensus was that he was not. In the beginning of the book, Nick had a conversation with Jordan at Gatsby’s party where she expressed doubt in his claim that he’d gone to Oxford. Going to Oxford was a big deal at that time. Nick believed Gatsby went there when Gatsby showed the class picture to him. Nick also realized that Gatsby didn’t have the money handed to him. Gatsby achieved his goals of becoming rich so Daisy would love him.

2. Coherence A Quick Lesson

3. Ways to improve paragraph coherence/unity • Strong and accurate topic sentences • Commitment and response • Downshifting

4. Commitment and response Make your readers a promiseand then keep it During the summer of 1970, the women’s movement came of age and the media and proved to the nation and the media that Americans were going to have to take feminism seriously. First, ...Ladies Home Journal appeared... Then, ...ERA was passed... Finally, ...women took to the streets... Flora Davis, Moving the Mountain What is it about the ancient cave paintings in the south of France that has so excited archaeologists? One extraordinary feature is the variety of animal images. Horses, reindeer, bison, yes – these are familiar to European cave experts. But elephants, rhinos and owls? Such paintings are unique to this newly discovered site. These beautiful figures...

5. Commitment and response What promise did this writer make to his readers? • Nick realized that Gatsby was accomplished in life, even though the general consensus was that he was not. In the beginning of the book, Nick had a conversation with Jordan at Gatsby’s party where she expressed doubt in his claim that he’d gone to Oxford. Going to Oxford was a big deal at that time. Nick believed Gatsby when there when Gatsby show the class picture to him. Nick also realized that Gatsby didn’t have the money handed to him. Gatsby achieved his goals of becoming rich so Daisy would love him.

6. DownshiftingBegin with broad, general statements and then moving down through a series of more and more specific statements and details. • There are signs that girls are finding their way into the world of computing despite its male bias. A large proportion of current enrollment...For example, at Mount Holyoke, a women’s college...According to John Durso, a professor of computer studies...

7. Ways to improve sentence to sentence coherence • External transitions • Order indicators (first, second, third) • Relationship words (however, for example) • Repetition/Dovetailing (as in “this”/specific term to general term “Gatsby couldn’t buy respect from the established wealth of East Egg. Such a problem seems absurd to most of us in the middle class of the Midwest, but...”) • Parallel structure

8. Can you identify the coherence techniques that this author uses to move from sentence to sentence? • From the beginning to the end of the piece, numerous fine details are used. The exact time and day of Phil’s death, “3:00 a.m., Sunday morning is repeated several times throughout the passage, a technique that emphasizes the finality of Phil’s death. It forces the reader to acknowledge the fact that this man, dedicated to hard work was dead. After all his late nights at work, six days a week, where is he now? While he was too busy concentrating on work, he ignored his family. Goodman uses details to portray the family as neglected, especially Phil’s widow who commented that she was “missing him all these years” and had “given up trying to compete with his work years ago when the children were small.” These fatherless children were now fatherless adults, one of whom “went around the neighborhood researching his father, asking...what he was like”

9. Now, what can we do to fix this paragraph? • Nick realized that Gatsby was accomplished in life, even though the general consensus was that he was not. In the beginning of the book, Nick had a conversation with Jordan at Gatsby’s party where she expressed doubt in his claim that he’d gone to Oxford. Going to Oxford was a big deal at that time. Nick believed Gatsby when there when Gatsby show the class picture to him. Nick also realized that Gatsby didn’t have the money handed to him. Gatsby achieved his goals of becoming rich so Daisy would love him.