RECOUNT WRITING UNIT FOR JUNIOR PRIMARY

(YR1)
Description of class event

The year one class has been on an excursion to the Big Rocking Horse in
Gumeracha, where there is a giant, climbable rocking horse; a wildlife park and
a toy factory.

Building the field

To begin, students shall be asked generic questions about the excursion such
as “Can anyone remember the name of where we went on Tuesday?” or “What
animals did you see?”

Following this, a slideshow of photos taken on the Gumeracha visit will be

displayed on the smartboard, with the children encouraged to talk together
about the images as each appears and to arrange them into the order they
believe they were taken.

The children will then draw a picture of their trip to the Big Rocking Horse and
provide a caption for it. They will share their pictures with each other in small
groups, discussing what they have drawn and written.

Next, the whole class brainstorms the words, ideas, feelings and phrases that
came to mind while viewing the photos, drawing their pictures and talking in
small groups. This will generate a list of specific events, participants and
features of the excursion that will be written onto a large piece of paper.

At this point, the students will be told that the list of words, along with their
illustrations, will be used to create a wall chart about the excursion to be
displayed in the front foyer for the school community to view.

Modeling the genre

Purpose of recounts

The class will be told what recounts are and their purpose – to tell what
happened for entertainment or posterity. This information will be written on a
large piece of paper.

There will be a display of recount examples at the front of the room such as:

· Diary: “Wombat Diary”, Jackie French(imaginative)

· Postcard: from home (personal)
· School newspaper article: “Playground Surprise”, Jenny Eather website
(factual)

In groups, one text will be collected and discussed for its potential purpose and
intended audience. Each group will share their answers with the class. A brief
mention of how these examples fall into the categories of personal, imaginative
or factual recounts will be given.

The class will be reminded that, as we are going to be writing about the things
that we did and enjoyed, our recount will a personal one.

Structural features

An example of a personal recount in “Woolahra Farm Excursion” will be

displayed on the smart board and read out to the class.

Features of the text, such as the title, orientation and sequence of events will
be highlighted, as will their purpose.

Title: gives an overall description of what the piece of writing is about

and is written at the top.
 Orientation: sets the scene at the beginning of the piece and lets the
audience know the who, what, where, when, how and why.

Sequence of events: follow in order of what occurred first, second, third,

et cetera to give a clear picture of how things unfolded.

Boxes will be drawn around the title, the orientation and the sequence of
events.

“Woolahra Farm Excursion” will be read again. Individual children will be

selected to point to components of the orientation and these will be highlighted
in yellow - who (classes 1A, 1B and 1C), when (Tuesday), what (trip to Woolahra
Farm) and how (by bus). The class will also be asked to identify the first and
last things that happened at the farm. These will also be highlighted.

A second version of “Woolahra Farm Excursion” will be displayed on the

whiteboard and read aloud, the difference being that the order of events will
not be chronological. This will demonstrate the importance that writing in
order has on meaning.

From there, children will work in groups to determine the sequence of events
for a short recount that has been cut into strips. For example, see Appendix 1:
My weekend at the football.

In the next activity, groups are given a copy of a nursery rhyme and asked to
highlight the title, the orientation and the sequence of events in order to
consolidate what they have learned so far. They are to colour-code the
highlighted components.

For example: Jack and Jill

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
 Who: Jack and Jill
What: went up the hill
Why: to fetch a pail of water

Event 1: Jack fell down and broke his crown

Event 2: Jill came tumbling after

These will be displayed around the room so the children can refer to them in
future tasks.

Language features

a) Past tense

“Diary of a Spider” by Doreen Cronin will be read, emphasising it was written in

past tense. Four entries from the diary will be selected and studied for past
tense verbs such as “We spun a huge sticky web on the water fountain” and “…
ran screaming from the room”. The words found in the book will be placed in a
table, along with their present tense form, and this will be the beginning of a
word wall the children can refer to during joint construction and independent
writing.

Children will then have opportunity to indentify past tense words for
themselves. They will be given photocopies of real postcards which the
teacher will bring in from home or construct him/herself, and will be asked to
circle any

past tense words they find. These will then be added to the word wall as will
any other words they discover during independent and group reading.

A cloze activity will then occur on past tense verbs.

For example:
 1. Johnny ______the ice-cream quickly so that it would not melt all over
his fingers.

2. At the 2000 Olympic Games, Cathy Freeman _______the 400m sprint

and won.

b) Time connectives

The purpose of a time connective and three or four examples will be given and
written on another word wall e.g. then, after, later and next.

The class will view the recount titled “Shopping” from Jenny Eather’s website.
This will be displayed on the smartboard so everyone can observe the time
connectives in the text that are highlighted when the mouse moves over that
particular section. New connectives will be put on the word wall.

Children then brainstorm other time connectives they think of and add these to
the word wall, along with any encountered during their further reading.

At the end of modeling

There will be a list about the features of recounts

· Purpose
· Personal
· Title
· Orientation
· Sequence of events
· Past tense
· Time connectives

There will also be two word walls

· Past tense verbs
· Time connectives

Joint construction
Chris McKimmie’s book “Brian Banana Duck Sunshine Yellow” will be
photocopied into a big book and read aloud. Students will discuss elements of
the book such as who the characters were, what Brain did and where Brian
went. The story involves a young boy visiting the Big Cow with his grandfather.
Questions will be asked that refresh the children’s memories about where they
went on their excursion and what they saw.

The list of words and phrases that the class compiled about their excursion to
the Big Rocking Horse will be brought out. So too will the list of recount
features and the two word walls. The class will be informed that, together with
the teacher, they will write a recount of the Gumeracha excursion using these
lists. A review of the structure of recounts will be given.

A diagram of a ladder will be stuck to the front wall. The class will first come
up with a title together, which will be placed in a cloud at the top of the ladder
diagram. Students will then circle words on the experience chart that relate to
orientation. These words will be written onto cardboard and blu-tacked to the
grass in the ladder diagram– it is the “foundation” of the recount.

The photos that the children sequenced earlier will be displayed on the
smartboard. These photos and the words from the experience chart will be
used to construct sentences about what happened on the excursion. Again,
these will be scribed by the teacher onto card. The sentence that describes the
first event will be stuck on the first rung, the second on the second rung and so
on. This will provide the correct chronological order for the recount.

The information from the ladder will then be used to write a properly structured
recount. A recount frame will be shown on the smartboard. The title will be
written in the appropriate box. The teacher will scribe the orientation, using
the words from the ladder diagram, into the orientation box and the events on
the ladder rungs will be placed into the events box. At this stage, the students
will be encouraged to refer to the word wall and select appropriate time
connectives for joining the events together. The text will be refined as a class,
checking for use of past tense (referring to the word wall) and spelling (with
use of dictionaries if need be), checking for full stops and also for correct use of
capital letters.

Together, the class will read the recount aloud. The students will then each
receive a copy to put in their books. A large copy will also be made and
displayed, along with the drawings completed by the children during building
the field, in the front foyer of the school.

Independent construction

Setting the context and purpose

‘Brian Banana Duck Sunshine Yellow’ will be re-read to the class, this time
emphasising the time that Brian spent with his grandparents. Following the
reading, the children will be informed that they must write their own recount
about a special time they have shared with their grandparents so that
everyone’s work can be made into a big book to share at the class
Grandparents Day.

Sharing a personal experience

The children will bring in a photo of their grandparents and will be given time to
talk about it in small groups.
In pairs, the students will then partake in a three-card game, with the
information required on each card being as follows:

Card 1: List memorable occasions you have shared with your

grandparents and circle the one that was the most special.

Card 2: Write words, phrases or feelings associated with the selected

experience.
 Card 3: Using words from Card 2, write brief sentences about what
happened in the experience.

Determining orientation

Each student will be given a chart in which they draw a picture in the large box
and write a word or two that describes it in the smaller box.

For example:

When Who Where What Why

Cloudy Saturday Grandma and Park Picnic Parents away

me

This will help children conceptualise their orientation.

Sequencing events

The children will be given a blank ladder diagram, like the one used in joint
construction. Using the information from the orientation exercise and the
three-card game, they will place their orientation words on the ‘grass’ and their
events on the ladder rungs in the order in which they occurred. Only three
events will be required for this age group.

Writing own recount

Each student will be provided with a recount writing frame and a checklist of
what is to be included in their recount.

The word walls of past tense verbs and time connectives will be on display and
the children will be instructed to transfer the information from their ladder to
their recount frame, referring to the time connectives list to join their events
together.

While the children are composing their recounts, the teacher will conduct
roving conferences and also hold mini-lessons. These lessons will be on the
use of full stops, appropriate use of capital letters and use of adjectives to
make their recounts more interesting. It may include such activities as making
an adjective word wall or engaging in cloze procedures for adjectives, or may
involve asking children to determine where to put capital letters and full stops
in a shared, enlarged text.

Once the children have constructed their recounts, they will tick their checklist
to ensure that they have included all the required features. Once they are
content that they have included all the elements they will sign their checklist,
and then swap their work with a peer who will read and check it and also sign
the checklist.

Following this, there will be an Author’s Chair session, after which children will
be given opportunity to make adjustments as they see fit. Once the children
are content with their piece, they will arrange a time to have an individual
conference with the teacher who will check over the recount with them and
help them refine it for publication. The children will then be able to write their
good copy on to a piece of card and draw a picture to accompany their recount.

Finally, the teacher will collect up the written and drawn works to create a big
book. The photos that the children brought in of their grandparents will also be
gathered and made into a collage for the books’ front cover. At the class
Grandparents Day, each student will have the opportunity to read their recount
to their peers and grandparents.

Appendix 1: My weekend at the football

Cut out each paragraph of the recount and put into the correct order.

My weekend at the football

Just before the end of the first quarter I went to the toilet but I
got lost. Luckily it wasn’t long and uncle Pete found me.
When we arrived, we found our seats and set up our blankets.
After that drama we bought a hotdog for lunch and dad even
let me have a Coke.
When the final siren sounded we cheered because our team
won and then we drove home.
Last Saturday I went to the football with dad and uncle Pete.

Bibliography

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Department for Education and Employment 2001, The national literacy

strategy: Developing early writing, London, viewed 30 May 2009,
[Link]

Derewianka, B 1990, Exploring how texts work, Primary English Teaching

Association, Rozelle, NSW.

Eather, J 2006, Writing fun: Recount – Shopping, viewed 28 May 2009,

[Link]

Eather, J n.d, News item organizer, viewed 28 May 2009,

[Link]

Education Department of Western Australia 1997, First steps: Writing

development continuum, Rigby Heinemann, Melbourne.
Education Department of Western Australia 1997, First steps: Writing resource
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Education Queensland 2008, The learning place: Genre project- year 1

resources, Queensland, 3 June 2009,
[Link]

French, J 2003, Diary of a wombat, Angus & Robertson, Pymble, NSW.

McKimmie, C 2006, Brian Banana Duck Sunshine Yellow, Allen & Unwin, East
Melbourne, Vic.

New South Wales Government 2009, Excursion recount – Kerry (Grade B),
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[Link]
recount-kerry/

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Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

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