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Explain what is meant by:

1. After the fire drill was over, we re-entered the building. Now
I raced up the stairs, stepping on the heels of the slowpoke
ahead of me.
2. I was out of my seat in a flash, heading for the teacher’s
desk, when a redheaded girl across the aisle tripped me up.
3. She leaned over me as I lay sprawled on the floor and hissed
in my ear.
4. Slowly I began to erase the troublesome incident from my
consciousness, and my fear began to fade.
5. I came home that afternoon more mixed up than ever but
determined not to stick my neck out.
6. … I fled out the front door in my stockinged feet, going forty
miles an hour, my heart pounding like a jackhammer in my
chest. QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION

1. Comment on the first sentence of the story /part I/. Is it an
effective beginning?
2. Speak on the role of rhetorical questions in the story. What
do they add to the text?
3. Why is the story divided into two parts? Do you observe any
difference between the ways the actions develop in “Gun in
the Desk” and in “Man Overboard”?
4. Point out three sentences in the story that keep you in
suspense.

A B
1) to scold a) to disappear suddenly and/or
in a way that you cannot explain
2) to stagger b) to make a feeling, an idea, a
memory, come into your mind
3) to stumble c) to warn sb about the possible
dangers or problems of sth
4) to trip d) an act of running or driving
after sb/sth in order to catch
them
5) troublesome e) to remove sth completely
6) to erase f) to walk with weak unsteady
steps, as if you are about to fall
7) to vanish g) the state of being able to use
your senses and mental powers
to understand what is happening
8) to caution h) to hit your foot against sth
while you are walking or running
and almost fall

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9) to summon up i) to catch sb's foot and make
them fall or almost fall
10) chase j) air that is difficult to see
through because it contains very
small drops of water, especially
caused by hot weather
11) to pound k) to speak angrily to sb,
especially a child, because they
have done sth wrong

8. He said, “I’m the TV repair man. Your folks know I am
here.”
9. He helped me up.
10. My parents came home.
11. We got the doorknob repaired.

II. Think of something unexpected that happened to you that
could make an interesting story. It could be a recent event,
or something way back in the past. Note:
1. It’s best if the event took a very short time – ten minutes,
or an hour. Don’t go beyond a day or a week.
2. Think of something unusual, surprising, embarrassing, or
painful; an experience that turned from bad to good, or
from good to bad.

III. Write a narrative essay on one of the topics below:

1. The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too
strong to be broken. /Samuel Johnson/
2. What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to
deceive. /Walter Scott/ Supplementary Reading:

Hairston, M.: “Successful Writing”.
Langan, T.: “College Writing Skills With Readings”.

Concrete language points to or identifies something that the
reader can experience or has experienced with his senses. Giving the
readers a straightforward, realistic account of how things look, smell,
sound, taste or feel is one of the most effective ways to make your
writing concrete. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feel of things
that the reading of description calls up in our minds are known as
images.