Writing Your Essay : Paragraph Unity

Supposing you are writing an essay on "How I Relax Myself". Here's a paragraph written by a student. One of the sentences should not be there because it is out of place: it does not contribute to the unity of the paragraph. A paragraph is unified only when the points of the paragraph support the topic sentence or main idea of the paragraph. Rewrite the paragraph by removing the irrelevant sentence.

When I am in my garden, I feel relaxed. I like to sit in my garden and read a book or magazine while having a cup of tea. I love to look at the different flowers such as hibiscus, bougainvilleas and heliconias. When I look at them, all my worries and anxieties just evaporate. I also relax by watering the plants in the mornings and evenings. I also find it relaxing cutting the grass and pulling out the weeds every fortnight. My mother also likes to relax in the garden. Sometimes I like to watch the insects that are in my garden. My garden also attracts squirrels and birds because of the fruit trees. Watching them is also relaxing even though they are eating some of my fruits.

Imaginative Composition

Here's a GCE 'O' Level essay question I posed to a student of mine and this is what she came up with. The extract in bold is taken from John Wyndham's The Chrysallids. You're to continue the story in not more than 300 words, introducing dialogue wherever possible.

 "What's the matter?" I asked.
Her face was screwed up, tears stood in her eyes.
"My foot's stuck," she said.
Her left foot was buried. I scrabbled the soft sand clear with my hands. Her shoe was jammed in a narrow space between two up-pointed stones. I tried to move, but it would not budge.
"Can't you sort of twist it out?" I suggested.
She tried, lips valiantly compressed.
"It won't come."
"I'll help pull," I offered.
"No, no! It hurts," she protested.
I did not know what to do next. Very clearly her predicament was painful. I considered the problem.

"Should I call 911?" I asked.
Nervously, she agreed.
"Wait here and don't move," I said.
I ran as fast as I could searching for a phone booth. After five minutes running around, there it was- a phone booth!Quickly I ran to the phone booth and dialled 911.
"Thud!"my heart pounded when it did not accept my coins. I kept trying.
"This is the last try," I cried. Finally, it accepted my coins.
"This is the Fire Department. How may I help you?" a man asked.
I quickly gave him all the information and ran back to where the girl was.The girl was still sobbing. I stared at the stones, and I noticed that the gap was now bigger.
"That's it!" I screamed.
The girl had been sobbing so hard that her tears had loosened the stones a bit. Coming to my senses, I took out some olive oil and poured it on the girl's feet. With a pull of her leg, she was finally free. Thanks to the oil.
The firemen arrived with an ambulance.
"We're glad you're alright," one of them said.
Luckily the girl had only sprained her ankle; so, there was no need for her to go to the hospital. Before the girl could thank me, I had fled the scene, grinning happily, feeling like a superhero.