The Structure of Recount Texts

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c. The Structure of Recount Texts

According to Anderson and Anderson 1997: 53, there are three parts of a recount: 1 Orientation : provides details of whowhatwhenwhere 2 Events : a series of paragraphs retell in the order to what has happened 3 Reorientation : concludes the retelling of the events and usually contains of a personal comment of the writer. The story of Toba Lake Once upon a time, there was a man who was living in north Sumatra. He lived in a simple hut in a farming field. The did some gardening and fishing for his daily life. One day, while the man was do fishing, he caught a big golden fish in his trap. It was the biggest catch which he ever had in his life. Surprisingly, this fish turned into a beautiful princess. He felt in love with her and proposed her to be his wife. She said; Yes, but you have to promise not to tell anyone about the secret that I was once a fish, otherwise there will be a huge disaster. The man made the deal and they got married, lived happily and had a daughter. Few years later, this daughter would help bringing lunch to her father out in the fields. One day, his daughter was so hungry and she ate his father’s lunch. Unfortunately, he found out and got furious, and shouted; “You damned daughter of a fish”. The daughter ran home and asked her mother. The mother started crying, felt sad that her husband had broke his promise. Then she told her daughter to run up the hills because a huge disaster was about to come. When her daughter left, she prayed. Soon there was a big earthquake followed by non-stop pouring rain. The whole area got flooded and became Toba Lake. She turned into a fish again and the man became the island of Samosir. Adapted from http:www.englishdirection.com 21 Those are also the case in the work of Knapp and Watkins 2005: 234 who discuss that recounts normally have an orientation, followed by a sequence of events, with an optional evaluation stage. Furthermore, Knapp and Watkins 2005: 223 state that there are different ways of teaching this stage of narrative writing: for example, characters, time, and place; who, what, where, when, and so on. In teaching writing recount, language features are the second thing the students have to know. Anderson and Anderson 1997: 53 state that the language features of the text of recount are: Title Orientation Events Conclusion Reorientation Holiday in Yogyakarta Last week, my family and I went to Yogyakarta for having holiday. We rent a car and my father drove us himself. There were many places to visit. First, we went to Sultan Palace. There, my family and I saw many historical things. Then we went to Beringharjo Market to do shopping. We bought a lot of batik clothes and accessories for a gift to our friends and relatives. Beringharjo was very crowded. Next, around 3 p.m., we moved to Prambanan Temple to see sunset. There we saw beautiful sceneries. We also met a lot of foreigners. My brother and I talked with some foreigners from England and Australia. They were very friendly. We enjoyed the sunset together. Finally at 6 p.m. we said goodbye to them because we had to go home. It was an unforgettable holiday. I hope I can come to Yogyakarta again one day. 22 1 The use of proper nouns 2 The use of past tenses 3 It is organized in a chronological order, using time connectors that signal the order of sequences or events, for example then, next, after, meanwhile. 4 The use of adjectives and adverbs for details.

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