A recount text is a text which describes how an event happened in the past.

The event
usually occurred in a sequence of time. It can be personal, historical, and
biographical. Personal recount concerns a personal writer’s experience like holiday
time, school moments, and an unforgettable experience. Historical recount is
concerned with a history of a place or an object. Biographical recount tells about the
life history of a person, usually a famous important person.
The generic structure of recount text consists of three elements: orientation, events,
and reorientation. Orientation directs the reader to the events that follow. Events
record the information that happened. Reorientation returns the reader to the point of
departure and closes the story.

The presence of reorientation in a recount text is optional. It means it can or cannot

be available in the text, depending on the writer’s intention.
The three elements of recount text can be explained as follows:

Text elements Content

Orientation Information about an event and its setting. It

provides details of who,what, when, where, or
why.

Record of A sequence of events which happened in a

events chronological order. What

happened? First ….. Second ….. Next ….. Soon

….. During ….. After ….. Later ….. Eventually
….. Finally …..

Reorientation Closure, conclusion, or summary of the events

(coda) that explains about what we think, feel, or
decide about the events that occurred
 The elements of recount text without reorientation can be described as follows:

RECOUNT PLAN

TOPIC:

1. SETTING: Who, What, Where, When, Why

2. RECORD OF EVENTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER:

Event 1

Event 2

Event 3

Event 4

Event 5

As a text which describes something that happened in the past, a recount text has
language features with the following characteristics:

 Focus on a specific participant (persons, animals, or things

involved) with some pronouns representing the noun/participant
 Use of material processes/action verbs
 Circumstances/adverb phrases to show location/place,
time, manner, and frequency, such as at school, in the morning,
slowly, and sometimes
 Use of past tense
 Focus on temporal sequence signaled with conjunctions
and time connections which order events, happenings, or
actions, such as and, but, then, however, after that, etc.

Personal recount

Topic Fishing

Orientation Yesterday I was going to a lake for fishing. It was

a nice time because I had no work to do.
Record of(1) I woke up earlier in the morning,
and then I went to the marketplace to buy some
Events shrimps I would use for the fishing bait. After
that, I went to the lake to start fishing.
(2) At the lake, I looked for the best point to
fish. I went to the place under a big tree at the
bank of the lake.
(3) I threw my hook as far as I could, and
then I waited for the fish eating my
bait. After about a thirty-minute waiting, I felt that
a fish ate my bait, and it was true. I got a big fish.
It was the first big enough fish I got in
fishing. I got ten big fish and three small fish that
day. I was very happy.
(4) I would cook those fish at home and then I
would call my friends to come to my house. We
 would have a small party.

(5) But I was not lucky enough because on the way

home, I met a beggar. He was an old poor beggar. I
gave all of my fish to him and I wish he would be
happy getting those fish. Perhaps, he could sell
them at the market and got some money to buy
some food.

ReorientationAlthough I had no more fish after that, I was quite

happy because I could help people.

From the recount text entitled ‘Fishing’ above, the explanations

can be made as follows: (Look at some words in bold, italics,
underlined as examples)

 The text focuses on a specific person, namely ‘I’ (in bold).

 There are a number of action verbs, such as ‘going’,
‘woke’, ‘went’, ‘use’, ‘looked’, ‘threw’, and ‘waited’ (in italics).
 There are some adverbs of time and place in the text such
as ‘yesterday’, ‘to a lake’, ‘in the morning’, ‘to the marketplace’,
‘to the lake’, and ‘at the lake’ (underlined).
 The sentences are mostly formed in past tense like ‘was’,
‘had, ‘woke’, ‘went’, ‘would’, ‘looked’, ‘threw’, and ‘waited’,
‘felt’, and ‘got’ (in italics).
 The text involves temporal sequences such as ‘then’, ‘after
that’, ‘as far as’, and ‘after’ (underlined).