RECOUNTS

Purpose              : To tell the readers what happened in the past through a sequence of events.


Text Organization  :
  
     1. Personal Recounts:

• Orientation (who were involved in the story, when, and where). 
• Events (tell what happened in a chronological order).
• Evaluation (comments of the writer/speaker about the experience).
• Re-orientation (optional) (the conclusion of the experience).

    2. Factual Recounts:

• Orientation (who were involved in the story, when, and where). 
• Events (tell what happened in a chronological order).

Language Features    :

•  The use of nouns and pronouns ( e.q.: David, we, his).
• The use of action verbs (e.q.: went, spent, played).
• The use of past tenses (e.q.: We went for a trip to the zoo).
• The use of time conjunctions (e.q.: and, but, after, finally).
• The use of adverbs and adverbs of phrases (e.q.: in my house, two days ago, slowly). 
• Adjectives (e.q.: beautiful, sunny).   

An example of Recount text:

Picasso was one of the most outstanding and important artists of the 1990's. He is best known for his paintings. Almost every style in modern art is represented in Picassso's works.
Picasso was born in 1881 in Malaga, Spain as the son of an art teacher. He studied painting with his father and also in Madrid.
From about 1895 to 1901 he painted realistic works in a traditional style. Then he entered what was called the Blue Period. During this time he only used shades of blue in his paintings to show proverty he saw in Barcelona.
After 1907, he entered into the style of cubbism. Among his well-known cubbist paintings are "The Three Musicians" and "The man with a guitar" which depict the destruction of a Spanish town.
Picasso died in France in 1973.

                                                               (adapted from: Golden Home encyclopedia. p. 4751)