What is Recount?
1. Definition
of Recount
Recount is a text which retells events or experiences in the past.
Its purpose is either to inform or to entertain the audience. There is no
complication among the participants and that differentiates from narrative
2. Generic
Structure of Recount
1. Orientation: Introducing the participants, place and time
2. Events: Describing series of event that happened in the past
3. Reorientation: It is optional. Stating personal comment of the
writer to the story
3. Language
Feature of Recount
• Introducing personal participant; I, my group, etc
• Using chronological connection; then, first, etc
• Using linking verb; was, were, saw, heard, etc
• Using action verb; look, go, change, etc
• Using simple past tense
4. Examples
and structures of the text
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Our trip to
the Blue Mountain
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Orientation
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On Friday we went to the Blue Mountains. We stayed at David and Della’s house.
It has a big garden with lots of colourful flowers and a tennis court.
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Events
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On Saturday we saw the Three Sisters
and went on the scenic railway. It was scary. Then, Mummy and I went shopping
with Della. We went to some antique shops and I tried on some old hats.
On Sunday we
went on the Scenic Skyway and it rocked. We saw cockatoos having a shower.
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Reorientation
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In the afternoon we went home.
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Example of
Recount text
Mr. Richard’s family was on vacation. They are Mr. and Mrs.
Richard with two sons. They went to London.
They saw their travel agent and booked their tickets. They went to the British
Embassy to get visas to enter Britain.
They had booked fourteen days tour. This includes travel and accommodation.
They also included tours around London
They boarded a large Boeing flight. The flight was nearly fourteen
hours. On the plane the cabin crews were very friendly. They gave them news
paper and magazine to read. They gave them food and drink. There was a film for
their entertainment. They had a very pleasant flight. They slept part of the
way.
On arrival at Heathrow
Airport, they had to go
to Customs and Immigration. The officers were pleasant. They checked the
document carefully but their manners were very polite. Mr. Richard and his
family collected their bags and went to London Welcome Desk. They arranged the
transfer to a hotel.
The hotel was a well-known four-star hotel. The room had perfect
view of the park. The room had its own bathroom and toilet. Instead of keys for
the room, they inserted a key-card to open the door. On the third floor, there
was a restaurant serving Asian and European food. They had variety of food.
The two week in London
went by fast. At the end of the 14-day, they were quite tired but they felt
very happy.
Something which happened in the past is the main resource to
compose both recount and narrative text. In writer's point of view, the thing
is an experience. It can be what the writer has done, hear, read, and felt.
Composing recount and narrative is retelling the experiences of the past event
to be a present event.
What does recount differ from narrative?
The easiest way to catch the difference is analyzing the generic
structure. Recount text presents the past experiences in order of time or
place; what happened on Sunday, then on Monday, the on Tuesday. In simple way,
recount describes series of events in detail. It does not expose the struggle
on how to make them happen. The event happened smoothly. On the other hand,
narrative introduces crises and how to solve them. Narrative text always appear
as a hard potrait of participant's past experience. It reveals the conflict
among the participants. Cinderella's conflicts with her step mother and sister
are the example. The conflict is the most important element in a narrative
text. Narrative without comflicts is not narrative any more.
There were so many places to see in Bali
that my friend decided to join the tours to see as much as possible. My friend
stayed in Kuta on arrival. He spent the first three days swimming and surfing
on Kuta beach. He visited some tour agents and selected two tours. The first
one was to Singaraja, the second was to Ubud.
On the day of the tour, he was ready. My friend and his group
drove on through mountains. Singaraja is a city of about 90 thousands people.
It is a busy but quiet town. The street are lined with trees and there are many
old Dutch houses. Then they returned very late in the evening to Kuta.
The second tour to Ubud was a very different tour. It was not to
see the scenery but to see the art and the craft of the island. The first stop
was at Batubulan, a center of stone sculpture. There my friend watched young
boys were carving away at big blocks of stone. The next stop was Celuk, a
center for silversmiths and goldensmiths. After that he stopped a little while
for lunch at Sukawati and on to mass. Mass is a tourist center
My friend ten-day-stay ended very quickly beside his two tour, all
his day was spent on the beach. He went sailing or surfboarding every day. He was
quiet satisfied.
Let me remind you my experience during an earthquake last week.
When the earthquake happened, I was on my car. I was driving home from my
vocation to Bali.
Suddenly my car lunched to one side, to the left. I thought I got
flat tire. I did not know that it was an earthquake. I knew it was an
earthquake when I saw some telephone and electricity poles falling down to the
ground, like matchsticks.
Then I saw a lot of rocks tumbling across the road. I was trapped
by the rock. Even I could not move my car at all. There were rocks everywhere.
There was nothing I could do but left the car and walked along way to my house,
in the town.
When I reached my town, I was so surprised that there was almost
nothing left. The earthquake made a lot of damage to my town. Although nothing
was left, I thanked God that nobody was seriously injured.
Generic
Structure Analysis
Orientation; introducing the participant, using first person point of view, I was on
the car las week.
Events; describing a series of event which happened. The car lunched to one
side. Telephone and electricity poles was falling down, etc.
Re-orientation; stating the writer's personal note. Thanking God because nobody was
seriously injured.
Language Feature
Analysis
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Using personal participant; I
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Using chronological connectives;
then, and, suddenly
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Using linking verb; was, were
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Using action verb; moved, left,
walked, made, etc
•
Using simple past tense pattern;
earthquake happened, I was on the car, my car lunched on one side, etc
Last month my family and I went to Toraja to attend Grandpa’s
funeral. It was my first time to go to such a ceremony. We gathered there with
our kin in the ceremony.
Overall, the ceremony was quite elaborate. It took about a week.
Several days before the ceremony was done, grandpa’s body was kept in a series of
houses arranged in a circular row around an open field called tongkonan. His
corpse was dressed in a fi ne wearing.
The funeral was performed in two phases. First, we slaughtered the
pigs and buffaloes, and then moved the corpse to face north. In this ceremony
we wore black clothes. After that, the corpse was placed in a sandal wood coffin.
Then, it was brought out of the house and placed on an open platform beneath
the granary. Meanwhile, my uncle, my brother, and I prepared the wooden puppet
and a funeral tower called lakian. The next phase of the ceremony was held in
this place. The coffin is borne from the house and placed in the lakian. During
the day, there were also buffalo matches. They were great matches. In the
night, we were feasting, chanting, and dancing.
On the last day, the grandpa’s coffin were lowered from the
funeral tower and brought up to the mountain side family graveyard. It was
followed by great shouting and excitement from the relatives and the guests.
Finally, we installed the wooden puppet on a high balcony where other puppets
representing the members of a whole family were already there. The funeral
ceremonies made my family and me tired. However, we were grateful because it
ran smoothly.
Questions
1. When did the writer attend the funeral?
2. How long did the writer and his family hold the
ceremony?
3. What did they do to the corpse before the funeral was
done?
4. What did they do after the corpse was placed in a sandal
wood coffi n?
5. What did they do on the last day of the ceremony?
Notes:
A recount text is a text that tells you a part of experience. A recount
text has an orientation, a series of events in chronological order, personal
remarks on the events and a reorientation that “rounds off” the sequence of
events. In the text, you find words and phrases used to start, connect a
sentence with the next one, and end your composition. Those words and phrases
are:
•
First,
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Then,
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After that,
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Finally,
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