text 1

1: On June 3, 2004, Darlene went through a moment of terrible fear. On that day, she was working as a relief letter carrier.

2: As she climbed the front steps of a house with mail in her hand, two pit bull dogs suddenly lunged at her through an open screen door.

3: Darlene ran down the steps trying to get away from the dogs.

5: When she got to the bottom of the stairs, she ran across the sidewalk and toward the street.

6: But before she reached the street, she tripped on the curb and fell.

7: Both dogs pounced on her.

text 2

1: Although the majority of the public is in favour of a ban on pit bulls, many people oppose the idea

2: They say there is nothing wrong with pit bulls and that they are really affectionate and playful animals that make good family pets.

3: The problem, according to the opponents of the ban, is that some people train their pit bulls to be aggressive.

4: That is what makes them dangerous.

possible teaching points

1: a relief letter carrier: a noun phrase, headword ‘carrier’ preceded by two noun modifiers; meaning of ‘relief’

2: pit bull dogs: here ‘pit bull’ is working as a compound noun modifier

3: lunge at / pounce at: two prepositional verbs with connected but different meanings (‘suddenly, violently throw oneself at something’ / ‘jump and land on top of something’)

4: there is nothing wrong with pit bulls: compare with ‘there is nothing wrong with getting drunk’ or ‘there is nothing wrong with listening to rap music’ (a common, colloquial way of saying something is not bad, dangerous, etc.)

5: they make good family pets: roughly equivalent to ‘are good family pets’ but with emphasis on how dogs’ behaviour results in their being good pets. Compare similar use of ‘make’ in (4).

6: according to: equivalent to ‘in the opinion of’