The key aspects of a Recount/Personal Reflective Writing  text are...

• The writer aims to describe a past personal event or experience in detail. 

• Events are described in the past tense in sequential order.

• Thoughts, feelings and reflection are described in some detail to illustrate how or why the experience affected the writer. 

• Language is descriptive, utilising adjectives, adverbs, imagery and the senses to bring the experience to life. 

When modelling how to write a Recount text it is important to... 

• Limit choice of topic for younger students - pick a shared experience such as a class trip outside to help planning and focus writing on important events, setting description and feelings. Students will often want to simply list in sequential order everything they did rather than taking time to describe what they could see, sense and feel.

• Focus on the importance of planning before writing. 

  • It can be worthwhile to ask students to begin by selecting three feelings they had during the experience (scared, excited, relieved etc) and use these as the topic sentences to begin individual paragraphs (I was scared when I saw how big the rollercoaster was...I felt excitement when we rushed down the loop-the-loop...I felt relief flooding me as the ride finally came to a stop...). 

  • Alternatively, planning writing based on "The Best Part, The Worst Part, The Unexpected Part" of the experience can also help them focus their writing (and avoid students focusing all their recount on what the car journey to the airport and the MacDonald's hamburger they ate before the journey was like!).

• Before students write their main piece, have sessions on building vocabulary that describes feelings, people and places; using the description bubbles to generate adjectives for the senses of taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing.  Have this handy when they come to write their final piece. 

• Shorter practice activities using the target language before attempting the final piece:

  • •  Play taboo using four different pictures of different scenes. Students select one image to write about about using their senses and the class must guess which picture they're describing. 

    • Feelings snowball: Put students into equally numbered groups. Give each a piece of paper. The teacher says one simple feeling word, like "sad" and they must each write down one synonym for the feeling before passing it to a partner (upset, devastated, desolate etc.) . The first group to get the paper back to the first student wins. Share the words with the class to build vocabulary and "ban" them using the simplest feelings in their writing to encourage them to use the different words. 

• Demonstrate thinking skills out-loud when modelling writing your own: "How was I feeling when that happened? What could I hear? I could also smell..."

Skill progressions

Example Texts