This research aims at finding the employed types of Themes, thematic progressions and coherence level in narratives written by students from two different majors. Besides, this research also attempts to find out the influence of thematic progression towards the texts, and to explain the reason why thematic progression patterns appear the way they do in the texts. The research used the primary data which cover the thematic progressions conducted in the students’ writings that contribute in constructing the coherence. Meanwhile, the secondary data cover the way narratives’ unfold the story and the texts’ composers. The data and source of data were eight narratives taken from messopotamedu.blogspot.com. Four narratives were written by English Department students while the rests were written by Visual Communication Design students. The findings show that the types of Theme and thematic progressions employed in both groups of texts do not greatly differ in numbers. What differs them is the distribution of the progressions in each paragraph. Constant gap progression and empty progression are two of the other variables affecting the coherence. The longer gaps in constant gap progression, the less coherence it makes (Hawes, 2010). The longest gaps of English Department texts are 14 clauses with two occurrences, 15 clauses, 16 clauses, and 24 clauses. Meanwhile, the longest gaps of Visual Communication Design texts are 11 clauses, 24 clauses, 25 clauses, 1 Mahasiswa Jurusan Sastra Inggris dengan NIM C 0309004 2 Dosen Pembimbing and 33 clauses. As for empty progression, it stops the succession of progression chains. Therefore, the progression has a rather big effect in lessening the coherence level of a text. In English Department texts, there is only an empty progression found among the texts. Meanwhile, Visual Communication Design texts have nine empty progressions found across the texts. The employed thematic progressions in the texts influence how the readers perceive the texts or absorb the messages. Most paragraphs in English Department texts have fair level of coherence with thirteen out of thirty seven paragraphs. Meanwhile, most paragraphs in Visual Communication Design texts have less level of coherence with thirteen out of thirty three paragraphs. This result was drawn by considering the consistency of the occurrence of thematic progression in each paragraph. Employed thematic progressions also affect in shaping the genre of the texts. Constant progression is usually employed constantly in each clause in report and descriptive texts. Meanwhile, simple linear progression is commonly used in discussion, explanation, and exposition texts. As for narratives, they have no particular employed patterns in each paragraph. The process of unfolding the story is realized by various Themes. This research also explains that such patterns appear in particular genre because of the nature of the genre itself. Reports and description employ constant progression in each clause since the texts expand their idea in the clause around the thing being reported or described. As for discussions, explanations, and expositions, they employ simple linear in each clause because such texts develop their idea in each clause by discussing and elaborating the phenomenon exists in the previous clause. Meanwhile, narratives usually do not really consider the way information flow is developed as the story unfolds. This happens because narrative is the genre which only focuses on ordering the sequence in each clause. Hence, thematic progressions are distributed unequally across the paragraphs.
