Recount

One of the genres discussed in grade 8 is recount. What do you know about this text type? This post will introduce RECOUNT to you all. Feel free to post questions, suggestions, or corrections regarding this post. Finally, happy learning!

Recount is a text which retells past events in order to inform or entertain the audience (listeners or readers).

 

Recount has specific generic structures:

a. Title (Optional)
This part summarizes the content of the text which may introduces the participants, the events, or the place.


b. Orientation
It introduces the background information, such as the participants, place or time.

c. Series of Events
This part describes list or series of events happened. It tells the events chronologically.

d. Reorientation
It states personal concluding comment or opinion from the author toward the story. This part is also optional.

Recount also has specific language features:

a. Using personal participant, e.g.: I, my family, we, etc.
b. Using past tenses
e.g.: When the earthquake happened, I was on my car.
c. Using connectors to put the events in order
e.g.: first, then, after that, finally, when, while, etc.


The following is an example of a recount text. (Taken from this site, edited version)

My Horrible Experience 

This is 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 rocked 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.

Let's discuss the structures of the text above!

a. Title: My Horrible Experience

b. Orientation: paragraph 1, which tells the general event, the time, and the situation.

c. Series of Events: paragraph 2 and 3, which tell the events happened chronologically.

d. Reorientation: paragraph 4, which tells the author's opinion about the event described.

Now, can you identify the language features of the text above? :) 

Vocabularies:

a. retell (v) : menceritakan kembali

b. entertain (v) : menghibur

c. audience (n) : hadirin, (penonton/pendengar/pembaca)

d. summarize (v) : meringkas

e. content (n) : isi

Do you find any new vocabularies from the text? Try to look up the meanings in your dictionary. Good luck!