Contextualization

Theoretical Introduction

Effective communication through writing is an essential and necessary resource for everyday life. For a text to properly fulfill its communicative role, it needs to be cohesive and coherent. But what does this mean?

Cohesion refers to the connection, link, and logical relationships between words, phrases, and sentences, creating a textual unity. It occurs through mechanisms like repetition, the use of synonyms, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, and other elements that allow ideas to be connected.

Coherence, on the other hand, refers to the harmony and logic of the text, encompassing the relationship between and among ideas in the text. Coherence is related to semantics, because it concerns the meaning of the text and the message it wants to communicate to the reader.

Why is it so important?

The ability to produce coherent and cohesive texts is a valuable resource in any area of life. This ranges from writing a simple email to academic texts, reports, and dissertations. Mastering these two skills makes communication clearer, more direct, and more effective, and prevents misunderstandings and comprehension difficulties.

It is also important to note that coherence and cohesion go hand in hand. Without one, the other is weakened. For example, a text can be cohesive, with a good connection between words and phrases, but if it is not coherent, it will not make sense to the reader. Similarly, a coherent text, with well-structured and logical ideas, but lacking cohesion, will be difficult to read and understand.

Practical Activity

Activity Title: Connecting Headlines - Coherence and Cohesion in Journalism

Project Objective

The objective of this activity is to develop the skill of creating coherent and cohesive texts. In this context, students will learn to produce journalistic texts (headlines and respective news stories) that clearly demonstrate the concepts of coherence and cohesion.

Project Description

Students will be divided into groups of 3 to 5 members each. Each group will be responsible for creating a "mini-newspaper" with the main section presenting three news articles that they wrote. The news articles must be original and demonstrate coherence and cohesion in the text.

Materials Required

• Notebook or paper for drafts
• Computer with internet access (for research and final editing)
• Text editing software (e.g., Microsoft Word, Google Docs, etc.)

Step-by-Step

1. News selection: Each group must choose three themes for their news articles. These themes can be fictitious or inspired by real events and should cover different areas (e.g., a science news story, a sports news story, and a culture news story).

2. News writing: Each member of the group must write a draft for one news article, employing the concepts of coherence and cohesion. The news article should have both a title (headline) and a body.

3. Group review: The students must share their drafts with the group, reviewing and improving the coherence and cohesion. It is important that all members of the group participate actively in the revision of all texts.

4. Finalization: After the review and improvements, the texts should be typed and formatted in a newspaper structure.

5. Written document: In parallel to the practical activity, the group must write a research document about the process of learning and creating the project. The document should contain an Introduction (contextualizing the relevance of the concepts of coherence and cohesion and describing the objective of the practical activity), Development (with an explanation of the theory used, details on the process of creating the news articles, methodology, and results), Conclusion (summarizing the main points and lessons learned from the project), and Bibliography.

6. Project presentation: Each group will present their "mini-newspaper" and research report to the class.

Project Deliverables

At the end of the project, the groups must deliver:

1. The "Mini-Newspaper" containing the three articles created by the group, which will be assessed on the application of the concepts of coherence and cohesion.
2. The Research Report, in which the group explores their understanding and application of the concepts of cohesion and coherence in their texts.

Remember that the goal of this project, in addition to learning and applying the concepts of textual coherence and cohesion, is to develop important skills like teamwork, time management, problem-solving, and creative thinking.