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What is a recount?

A story about something that really happened to you (your personal experience) is called a recount.

Watch: Recounts

Writing a recount

Remember, when you write a recount, you should:

1. Write in the first person because it happened to you. For example:

I felt excited.

2. Use the past tense because the events have already happened. For example:

It was the biggest fish I had ever seen!

3. Write about events in the order in which they happened.

4. Use time adverbials such as:

firstly, next, then and finally.

5. Use descriptive words to help your reader imagine they were there with you. For example:

The fish was shiny and slippery.

6. Focus on the most exciting parts of the story.

Activity 1

When you are writing a recount, you need to use some time adverbials to link your ideas together.

Time adverbials tell us when an action happened.

Read the time adverbials below and number them from one to five to show the order you would use them in a story.

You can find the answers on this

Activity 2

Let’s recount a day in your life!

Recounts are usually about something that really happened to you (like a visit somewhere, or a special day).

They should be written in the order they actually happened.

For this task you are going to plan a recount on a timeline like this.

Think about a special day that you would like to write a recount about. It could be your first day back at school, a visit somewhere exciting or maybe your birthday.

Think about what happened and in what order and draw your own timeline. Like this:

Activity 3

Let’s be creative!

You’re now going to use your imagination to write a recount of your day as though you are one of the items in the list below.

• a shoe
• a pencil
• a lunchbox

• a car
• a pound coin
• a plastic bag

Before your start writing, think through your answers to the following questions.

1. What are you writing as?

2. What will your first line be?

3. Where have you been? Try to think of five places and use the different adverbials: 'first', 'next', 'then', 'after that', 'finally'.

4. End your recount with a closing statement about your day. Was it a good day?

When you have finished thinking about the questions above, write up your recount as a full paragraph.

Here’s an idea (writing as a pencil) to get you started!

First of all, my day started in darkness. Tucked up inside my pencil case, with all the other sleepy pens and pencils, I was lovely and comfy until I heard the school bell ring.