Hi everyone! I am Ms Velvet and today, I’m going to focus on the personal recount essay. This type of writing is one of the question types that you may see in the Continuous Writing section of the O level Paper 1. For this section, students are required to write about 350 to 500 words on one of the four topics set, and the topics set may cover different types of text, for example narrative or exposition. Personal recount is commonly tested for this section, and is a popular option with many students.
Students are assessed for both Content and Language for Continuous Writing. Hence, in order to do well, first of all you will need to ensure that all aspects of the question are fully addressed and developed in detail. Moreover, you will need to write using highly accurate language, apart from very occasional slips. Your sentence structures will need to be varied for particular effects and your vocabulary must be wide and precise. You should also make sure that the ideas presented are coherent and cohesive throughout the essay. Does this all sound daunting to you? Have no fear! There is time to learn and improve on your writing from now until the O-levels!
Personal Recount vs. Narrative
Let’s delve a little deeper into the personal recount essay. Such a question type can be usually identified with the question starter, “Write about a time…”, for instance: “Write about a time when you lost something or someone important to you” or “‘I have never seen my friend laughed so much!’ Write about a time when this happened.”
It is similar to a narrative in the sense that it requires you to recount a personal experience or event (hence, in this case, telling a story that happened in the past). However, it is different from a narrative because it requires more structure and for you to reflect on the experience. Take a look at this question from the 2022 O Level paper:
‘I realised that I was much stronger than I had previously thought.’ Write about a time when you felt like this.
The recount essay that you write should not only include retelling a past experience in which you demonstrated how much stronger you were than you had previously thought yourself to be but it should also contain reflections on what you took away from that experience and how it might perhaps cause a change in your character or attitude. Now, the recount question may or not explicitly tell you to reflect, but reflection about the incident is actually a key part of personal recount essays. A genuine and deep reflection at the end of the incident allows the writer to evaluate his or her experience and therefore contribute thought-provoking ideas or insight.
Another distinct difference between the recount and narrative is that while a narrative can be written from a first person or third person perspective, the recount must always be written in the first person perspective, since the question focuses on ‘you’ and your experience or feelings.
Real vs. Imagined Experiences
Does this mean that the personal recount essay must always be from your own experience i.e. something you have actually done or gone through in real life and that it cannot be purely imaginative? Well, not necessarily so! Recounts can be imaginative. However, the main thing to remember is that the event or experience that you retell is realistic and focuses on something that can happen to a person in real life.
To further explain this, let’s use the 2022 question as an example. The recount you write for this question can be about a time when the main character needed to complete a difficult project with a very tight deadline. It is possible that you may not have faced such a situation before but write the recount by imagining yourself to be in this person’s shoes. In this case, although the situation is not your own real life experience and completely imagined by you, it is still acceptable because it is a situation that can happen in the real world.
However, this is definitely different from someone who decides to retell an experience of being abducted by aliens and how they managed to fight these aliens off in order to escape! Such a retelling is better off being a narrative as it is less or not even likely to happen in real life.
The point I am trying to make is this: with personal recount essays, you should stick to retelling events that can happen in the real world, even though it is something you have not experienced before. As long as you write in a way that grips the marker’s attention while reading it, and you address the topic well and thoroughly, you are on your way to scoring well!
2 Tips to Writing Well
Earlier in the post, I mentioned how students will be assessed for Content and Language for Continuous Writing. Hence, someone who is writing a personal recount topic will need to structure the writing in such a way that the topic is fully addressed and developed in detail. He or she should be using language that is not only accurate and precise but also be able to present the ideas in a meaningful and organised manner. In order to do that, let me share with you two tips below:
Tip #1: Have a clear organisational structure
Although the main part of your essay should address the retelling of the event based on the question requirement, you should also remember to have a suitable introduction as well as to include your reflections in the last paragraph. The essay should be organised to look something like this:
- Paragraph 1 (Introduction): hook your reader with an interesting opening and make a direct reference to the question
- Paragraph 2 (Context): provide important background information to help your reader understand the recounted experience
- Paragraphs 3 to 5 (Recount): retell the experience clearly, and remember to include what led to the event as well as what happened afterwards
- Paragraph 6 (Reflection): reflect on what you took away from the experience. You can consider some of these questions: How did the experience make you feel? Did you learn a lesson or have a change in attitude as a result? Did the experience impact your decision for the future?
Tip #2: Use vivid and precise descriptive language
Since this question type requires you to relate a personal experience, it is hence important to include descriptive techniques in your writing. There are two ways you can do this:
(a) use your 5-senses
This technique is particularly useful when describing the setting as well as the characters that appear in your recount. Including such descriptions would make the scene more alive and the characters more real for the reader. Take a look at the following description:
Using the senses of sight and hearing (shown in italics in the paragraph), the writer has managed to effectively paint a picture of what was happening while the main character was waiting for the train. From the description, you can sense the character’s frustration as he waited for the delayed train in a crowded station.
However, do take note that you may not need to use all the five senses in one description! For example, if you are describing a scene at the beach, the main senses you would most probably be using would be sight, hearing and touch. You might not need to describe the sense of taste, unless you are eating something there. Similarly, when describing a person, you would most often focus on how they look and sound, or even smell. As such, you should always look at the situation to determine which senses are most suited and should be described in detail.
(b) use show-not-tell phrases
Since emotions are a vital part when recounting personal experiences, you should describe them using show-not-tell phrases to draw your reader in. These phrases should not only be used to describe feelings but also your reactions to what was happening to you in the recount. Take a look at the short example below:
Notice how the writer describes the main character’s reaction effectively by describing her actions and even thought. These phrases clearly show how terrified she was of the person who was speaking to her.
Other than adding thoughts and actions, you can also consider using speech as well as describing facial expressions in order to convey the emotions that the main character is feeling in the recount.
I hope that you have learned more about the personal recount essay from this post. Before I go, let me summarise the key parts of this question type:
- it is usually identified with the question starter, “Write about a time…”
- it requires you to recount a personal experience or event, so you should write from the first person point of view and in the past tense
- it should include reflections on what you took away from the retold experience
- it should include descriptive techniques to enhance the retelling
Now, are you ready to start writing? 😊
Strapped for time? Want a quick but effective boost?
Our workshops and camps will be the solution you need!