Role-play recount writing and diary writing for the characters of the internationally bestselling series The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.
This download contains an exclusive model text from Pie Corbett. This takes the format of diary entries from Jared and Mallory Grace. There’s also a PDF full of activity ideas to help your pupils get started with recount writing.
What is recount writing?
Recount writing refers to a type of writing where students narrate events or experiences in chronological order.
It focuses on retelling events from personal experiences, historical events, fictional stories, or real-life situations. The primary goal is to inform, entertain, or reflect on the sequence of events.
Starter activities
- Make a list of time connectives, e.g. first, next, after that, while, when, this morning, later on, early today, that evening, eventually, finally, at last.
- Experiment with making sentences up very rapidly using the different connectives.
- Put the children in pairs to tell each other anecdotes about past events, e.g. funny times, sad things that have happened, a time I was in trouble, my best holiday.
- Give the children a jumbled paragraph that uses time words and see if they can put it back together in the right order.
More resources
Use these inspiring Pie Corbett non-fiction texts to get your KS2 pupils writing explanation texts, non-chronological reports and instructions.
Pie Corbett is an English educational trainer, writer, author and poet who has written over 200 books.
