Genre: Recount Texts
Audience
Purpose
Text
organisation
Someone who wants to know what happened
To retell a real event in an interesting and engaging way.
Writing is in chronological order – in the order it happened
A beginning
Opening paragraph to hook the reader and orientate the reader. Set the scene
and have key relevant information.
Can often be one well-crafted sentence.
Middle
Can be
several
paragraphs
Use : Who? What? Where? When? Why? to make sure you have important
information.
Paragraphs have lead sentences that provide more details on opening paragraph.
Use paragraphs to signal a change in place, person, time or significance of events.
Try to include a central character commenting on the event e.g. include a quote.
End
A closing statement to sum up events to show the importance or significance
Tip: box up your plan remembering your audience, one box for each paragraph. Flow charts can help.
Language
features
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Past tense verbs, be consistent.
Time connectives and sentence signposts (at first, next, yesterday, last week, after a while,
later that day, just after, before long, finally, eventually, meanwhile)
Specific names of people and places and descriptive -often in the style of information or
explanation.
Pick out incidents that are amusing, interesting or important.
Use powerful words, brave, plucky, heroic, undaunted.
Write in the 1st or 3rd person verbs – choose one and stick to it. (I or he, she, they)
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Use varied sentence lengths, short ones to make key points and complex sentences
Use different types of sentence openers see A Q V C S O A P section to give you ideas
Check it flows properly, by reading it aloud.
Check the details keep your reader interested.
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Express it
Examples
Trip to a local museum
Autobiography
Biography
News reports
Letters
Read as a writer and see if you can read
examples of this genre and “magpie” good
phrases and techniques