Topic

Ballooning
The first kind of air transportation was not a plane. It was a balloon.
Orientation
People traveled by balloon 100 years before there were planes or jet
aircraft. Those early days of ballooning were exciting, but they were
also dangerous. Sometimes the balloons fell suddenly. Sometimes
they burned. However, the danger did not stop the balloonists.
(1) The first real balloon flight was in France in 1783. Two Frenchmen,
Record of
the Montgolfier brothers, made a balloon. They filled a very large paper
Events bag with hot air. Hot air is lighter than cold air, so it goes up. The
Montgolfier’s hot air balloon went up 1,000 feet in the sky.
(2) Later that same year, two other Frenchmen ascended in the
basket under a balloon. They built a fire under the balloon to make the air
hot. This made the balloon stay up in the air for a few hours. But their
balloon was tied to the ground. So it could not go anywhere.
(3) The first free balloon flight was in December, 1783. The balloon flew
for 25 minutes over Paris. It traveled about 5 ½ miles. Flying a balloon is
not like flying a plane. The balloon has no engine and therefore no power
of its own. The wind directs the balloon. It goes where the wind blows.
The pilot can control only the altitude of the balloon. He or she can raise
and lower the balloon to find the right wind direction. That is how a good
pilot controls where the balloon goes.

(4) Soon balloonists tried longer flights. A major event in the history of
ballooning was the first long flight over water. In 1785, an American and
a Frenchman flew over the English Channel. They left England on a cold,
clear January day. After about an hour, their balloon began to descend
toward the water. They threw out some equipment and food to make the
balloon lighter. The balloon continued to fall, so they threw out almost
everything in the basket—even some of their clothes. Finally, after
about three hours, they landed in France, cold but safe.

Reorientation During the nineteenth century, ballooning became a popular sport.

There were balloon races in Europe. Balloons were also used by scientists
to study the air and by armies in wartime. After the airplane was invented,
people lost interest in balloons. Planes were much faster and easier to
control. But some people today still like to go up in balloons. High up in
the balloon basket, they find quiet. They have a wonderful view of the
world below.

From the recount text entitled ‘Ballooning’, we can make some explanations as follows
(Look at some words in bold, italics, or underlined as examples) :

 The text focuses on a specific thing, namely ‘balloon’ (in bold).

 There are a number of action verbs used in the text such as ‘traveled’, ‘fell’, ‘burned’,
‘stop’, ‘made’, ‘filled’, ‘goes’, and ‘went’ (in italics).
 There are some adverbs of time, place, and manner in the text such as ‘by balloon’,
‘sometimes’, ‘in France’, ‘in 1783’, ‘in the sky’, ‘later that same year’, ‘in the basket’, and
‘under a balloon’ (underlined).

 The sentences are mostly formed in past tense like ‘was’, ‘traveled’, ‘were’, ‘fell’,
‘burned’, ‘did not stop’, ‘made’, ‘filled’, ‘went’, and ‘ascended’, ‘built’, ‘was tied’, and
‘could not go’ (in italics).

 The text involves temporal sequences such as ‘first’, ‘before’, ‘later’, ‘soon’,
‘after’,‘finally’, and ‘during’ (underlined).