A Recount Text and Structure

Recount Recounts tell the reader what happened. They retell a past event eg a visit to a farm.
Recounts begin by telling the reader who was involved, what happened, where this event took place and when it happened. This is called the orientation.
The sequence of events is then described in some sort of order
eg time.
There may be a reorientation at the end which summarises the event.
Example of a recount: shows the structure and language features of a recount text.

Recount: example
This sample recount is labelled to show you the structure and language features of a recount text.

title	A visit to a sheep property
orientation	Last holidays I visited a sheep property. I helped in the shearing sheds and in the yards.
sequence of events	On the first day the Merino wethers were crutched. I helped by sweeping up after the rouseabout picked up the wool pieces. Shearers start early (at 7.30 am). After lunch, we started shearing the lambs. There were more than 400 so we didn't finish until the next day. Once again I was sweeping and picking up dags. I was tired by the end of the day in the shed but our work wasn't finished. We all had to help to get the wethers and lambs back into the paddocks. As well, we had to get a mob of ewes and their lambs into the yards for shearing the next day. Then it was time for tea (that's what my nanna calls dinner).
reorientation	This was a very long day but I enjoyed it a lot.

Key to language features:		past tense		action terms
		indicates when		indicates where
		focuses on individuals

Writing recounts
When writing recounts you should:


• focus on individual people ie use the words, I or we • use words which indicate when (eg after lunch) and where the events took place (eg in the shed)
• write in the past tense eg had, visited
• use action words eg helped, crutched.

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