Language features that make the text cohesive and coherent
Using the activity from page 151 of Beverly Derewianka’s A New Grammar Companion for Teachers, demonstrate how pronouns are used to track participants through the text and make the text cohesive and coherent.
Model this by choosing a piece of text from the book and then completing the following steps:
- Underline nouns/noun groups (participants).
- Draw a shape around the pronouns used in the text.
- Draw a connection from the nouns to the pronoun(s) back to the nouns you have marked. A worked example is provided below.
- Use a different colour for each participant being tracked.
Students can then complete this task individually, using text from the book such as description of the settlers finding the sick Aboriginal people in the excerpt below.
Find a text version of above example from Grim Crims and Convicts by Jackie French page 63
