Narrative Writing
Personal Recount Meaning in English
A personal recount is a narration of personal experience. The purpose of this narrative writing style is to recall an event for information or enjoyment. In this chapter, recount writing grade 4 students will know personal recount definitions, features and mistakes that could happen while writing them.
In this learning concept, students will learn the following:
- To write a recount with clear examples.
- Parts of recounts with specific and relevant examples.
- Structure of a personal experience recount.
All English grammar concepts for class 4 have been covered using examples, mind maps and illustrations. To assess the understanding of these concepts, students can easily access these worksheets. The solutions to these worksheets are also available in easily downloadable PDF format.
What is a Personal Recount?
- A personal recount is to recollect an event or an experience from the writer’s life in story form with more personal details.
- It is based on the writer’s own thoughts, feelings and experiences.
- The aim to write a recount could be to inform or entertain.
How to Write a Personal Recount?
- A recount is usually written or narrated in the past tense, since it is about an incident or an event that happened in the past. For example, if you were narrating a recount or writing it, it would go like this “it was the worst moment ever” rather than “it’s the worst moment ever”
- They are narrated in an order as it happened. This helps the reader to understand the context well. what’s going on. You can use transitional words like ‘firstly’, ‘then’, ‘next’, and ‘finally’ to show the order of incidents.
- Make use of descriptive language to help frame a picture in the minds of the reader. Use adjectives and adverbs. While writing think about how that moment or event affected your senses.
- Write an appropriate title. The title should be precisely the entire story in a few words. Ensure that it is something simple.
Parts of a Personal Recount
Writing a personal recount is to actually retell an activity or event that happened in your own life. There are three main parts of a personal recount which can be outlined in to a five-paragraph essay writing:
- The introduction
- The body
- The conclusion
Use the trifle diagram to organize your ideas before writing a personal recount.
The Introduction
- to catch the reader’s interest, you need a good start in the introduction itself.
- Use an interesting fact, anecdote to open the narrative.
Questions the reader might write about in the introduction.
- What is the story about?
- Who is in the story?
- Where is the setting?
The body paragraphs
- Focus on telling the events or experience in sequence order
- Mention the problem or conflict in the story. whether the problem is internal or external.it helps move the story forward.
- Questions the reader might have in introduction
- What is the main problem?
- What will happen in the end?
The Conclusion
- The final section or the climax part is usually coming to a resolution part.
- It marks the end of the story where the person brings change or changes himself or a moral is learnt at the end.
- What is the solution?
- What lesson learnt? You can also give a personal opinion.
Common Mistakes
- Ensure you depict a real event that you were involved in personally. Do include accurate and plenty of details in the recount.
- Write the recount in a first-person point of view. Since it is about events that happened in your own life, you must use first person pronouns like "I", "my", "mine" and "we." Since you have to detail on how you felt and what you did, you must write the story from your perspective.
- Do not forget to use verbs since a personal recount describes the activities that happened. To describe those actions, use "action words," or "verbs." For example, if you write about the games you participated in a sporting event you can write: "I raced with others" or "I played". It is better to say that you performed these actions than just describing them without any actions.Brainstorm on some of the topics or events in your life and then structure according to the above points
