A Cold Crisp Day

Personal Recount

Last Sunday, my 2 sisters and I went for a walk in the park. It was freezing, but our mom and dad insisted that we had some outdoor activity. I reluctantly come with them.

We eventually reached the park. I lifted my gloves up to my damp eyelashes and wiped the snowflakes from my eyes. I could not feel my nose and my breath was like icicles forming in the air. I was cold. I was fed up. I wanted to go home. I could see my footprints on the snowy path. They were like a trail of breadcrumbs in the forest showing me the way home.

On the other hand, my sisters enjoyed the walk. They joyfully played with the snow. They started throwing the snowballs to each other. I stayed away from them. Otherwise, they would begin the snow war with me. 

Then, I stopped. I listened to the magic around me. I heard the wind howling like a dog hungry for a yummy bone. The branches of trees had become bare, and the grass was covered with white sparkling blanket. My breath was like smoke wafting up into the freezing cold air. I began to enjoy the park and joined my sisters building a small snowman.

Suddenly, there were mom and dad holding big cups. Mom handed one to me with an enormous smile on her face.

“Here you are Jo. This will keep you warm,” she said.

It was hot chocolate. I slowly sipped the delicious liquid and felt it dripping down into my tummy.

My wet woolen gloves were no longer frozen but warm. I was no longer fed up or cold. Walking in the park during winter was not that bad after all. It can be fun.

Recount Text

What is a Recount?

A recount retells an experience or an event that happened in the past. There are some types of recount. Some of them are personal recount and factual recount.

Personal Recount

It tells an activity that the writer has personally involved in, for example diary journal and personal letter.

Factual Recount

It reports the particular of an event by reconstructing facts, for example historical recount, biography, and autobiography.

This article will focus on the personal recount writing. Factual recount will be discussed in the next post.

Text Structure

Personal recount is divided into 3 parts. They are orientation, sequence of events, and reorientation.

Orientation 

It gives the background information. This paragraph introduce What the event was, where it  happened, when it happened, who involved. Sometimes, you can include why it happened.

Sequence of events

Events are identified and are told in chronological order.

Reorientation

In this paragraph, the writer expresses personal opinion regarding the event. Besides, the writer can recommend others, or tell what he or she learnt from that events.

Personal recount is mostly written in the first person "I". Although, it can be sometimes written in the third person, "he, she, they".

We use past tense to write a personal recount because it has already happened. 

Personal recount is written in chronological order, in order in which they happened. Use time connectives such as first, next, then, eventually, and so on. 

Below are the example of personal recount. Click on the title below to read them.

Camping 
A Cold Crisp Day 
Diving in Bunaken Island

Kangaroo

Descriptive Text

A kangaroo is an animal lives in Eastern Australia. It has a smaller relative called a wallaby which lives on the Australian island of Tasmanian and also in New Guinea. 

Kangaroos eat grass and plants. They have short front leg, but they have very long and very strong hind legs and a tail. These they use for sitting up on and for jumping. Kangaroos have been known to make forward jumps of over 8 meters and leap across fences more than 3 meters high. They can also run at speed of over 45 kilometers per hour.

News.com.au

The largest kangaroos are the great Grey Kangaroo and the Red Kangaroo. Adult kangaroo grows to a length of 160 meters and weighs over 90 kilograms.

Kangaroos are marsupials. This means that the female kangaroo has external pouch on the front of her body. A baby kangaroo is very tiny when it is born. It crawls at once into this pouch where it spends first five months of life.

Camping

Recount Text

A group of kids went on a camping for their school vacation. They arrived at the camping ground late in the afternoon. First, they put up their tent in the middle of a field. When they finished, they cooked a meal over an open fire. They were all hungry, and the food smelt good. After a wonderful meal, they told stories and sang songs by the campfire. But, sometime later, it began to rain. The kids felt tired, so they put out the fire and crept into their tent. Their sleeping bags were warm and comfortable, so they all slept soundly.

The next morning, the kids packed their things and went home happily. 

The Ants and the Grasshopper

Narrative Text

One summer day, a grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing. a group of ants passed by. They are struggling to carry kernels of corn. 

"Where are you going with those kernels? asked the grasshopper.

"We're delivering them to our ants hill, of course," replied an ant.

"Let's sing with me, instead of working hard. winter is far away," teased the grasshopper.

The ants didn't even stop. They went on working, storing food for winter.  

One bright day in late autumn, a family of ants was busy under the warm sunshine. They were drying out the grain that they had stored during summer. The grasshopper, who was starving, came up and begged the ants for something to eat.

"What!" cried the ants in surprise, "Haven't you stored anything away for the winter? What were you doing all last summer?"

"I didn't have time to store up any food," whined the grasshopper. "I was so busy playing music. Before I knew it, the summer was gone."

The ants shrugged their shoulder in disgust. "Playing music were you?" they cried. "Very well, now dance!"

And the ants turn their back on the grasshopper and went on with their work.

Moral value:

There's a time for work and a time for play.