This document provides information about the text structure of recounts. It defines a recount as relating experiences or retelling events to inform, entertain or reflect. It identifies the key features of a recount as including an orientation, sequence of events in chronological order, and a reorientation. An example is provided of a recount about a school's book week celebrations that demonstrates these features. Teachers are encouraged to plan, draft and edit their own recount, and to reflect on including all important recount features.

1. Text Structures: Recount
Literacy

2. Goal: I can identify the features of, and
write a recount.
1. I don’t know much about this topic.
2. I know a little about this topic.
3. I know a bit about this topic and have
used it.
4. I could explain this topic to my peers
and assist them

3. APK
Discuss with your partner things that you
think make recount writing interesting.
Make a list of 3 of these things in your
interactive notebook.

4. What is the Purpose of Recount Writing?
 Recounts are used to relate experiences or retell events
that happened to the writer to inform, entertain or
reflect.
 Recounts can be personal, factual or imaginative.
 Recounts can be either written or spoken. Examples of
recounts include:
 Biographies and autobiographies
 Newspapers or the television news
 Letters and postcards
 Textbooks
 Conversations with friends

5. Types of Recounts
There are different types of recounts, including:
Personal recount – retelling an activity that the writer has been personally
involved in and may be used to build the relationship between the writer and
the reader e.g. anecdote, diary journal, personal letter
Factual recount – reporting the particulars of an incident by reconstructing
factual information e.g. police reconstruction of an accident, historical
recount, biographical and autobiographical recounts
Imaginative recount – applying factual knowledge to an imaginary role in
order to interpret and recount events e.g. A Day in the Life of a Roman
Slave, How I Discovered Radium
Procedural recount – recording the steps in an investigation or experiment
and thereby providing the basis for reported results or findings
Literary recount – to retell a series of events for the purpose of
entertaining

6. What are the features/characteristics of
a recount?
 Title: should tell the reader what the recount is about
 Orientation: provides the reader with background information needed
to understand the text. Who was involved? What happened? When did it
happen? Where did it happen? Why did it happen?
 Sequence of events: what happened? This needs to be written in
the order of occurrence.
 First..
 Next…
 During…
 Finally…
 Re-orientation – rounds off the sequence of events. This may be in the
form of a summary or a return to the starting point. You may discuss
your personal feelings of what has happened in your recount.

7. Think about…
 Purpose – what do I want my writing to
do/achieve? e.g. accurately retell an event
 Audience – for whom am I writing? e.g. my
teacher, peers
 Identity – whom am I writing as? e.g. am I an
authority figure or expert in the area?
 Attitude – how will I make my audience feel? e.g.
informed, happy, sad

8. Let’s look at an example
On Thursday, 14th
of August Moonee Ponds Primary School celebrated Book
Week with a dress up day and Book Week Trivia for the grade 3-6 students.
Everyone dressed up as a character from their favourite book and people got
into the spirit of things competing for their house teams in the Book Week
Trivia.
The book week trivia was great fun, with people showing their knowledge of
authors and books while eating food in their house colours. There were 4
rounds of questions, a famous faces round and some excellent dance moves
being busted, trivia was over and everyone waited for the results to be
announced at assembly.
After lunch, everyone headed to assembly for the Book Week Dress-up
Parade and to hear the results of the trivia quiz. There were so many
fantastic costumes including Where’s Wally’s and Wanda’s, Steve from
Minecraft, Harry Potter’s and Cat in the hat’s.
MPPS Book Week 2014 was a great success, with everyone involved having a
fantastic day and showing off their love for books and reading.

9. Application
 Plan, draft and edit a recount about how you celebrated
your last birthday.
 You will have 40 minutes to write your piece. You may
use the checklist to assist.

10. Reflection
Reflect on how many points you managed
to tick off on the checklist.
Were you missing any important features?

11. Goal: I can identify the features of, and
write a narrative
1. I don’t know much about this topic.
2. I know a little about this topic.
3. I know a bit about this topic and have
used it.
4. I could explain this topic to my peers
and assist them