The document provides guidance on writing a slice of life recount. It explains that a slice of life story depicts an ordinary event or experience in a character's daily routine through brief, sensory details. It then offers tips for using active verbs and nouns, descriptive adjectives, sensory details, imagery like similes and metaphors, and onomatopoeia to engage the reader in a realistic narrative moment.

1. Slice of Life Recount
A slice of life story - a "cut-out" sequence
of events in a character's life.
Depicts every-day life of ordinary people.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011

2. Slice of Life Recount
brief
captures a slice / cut out of an experience
makes a point
uses the senses
tell about the ordinary - a common shared
experience sunset, baking, walking on a beach,
scavenging in a rock pool, a trip to Snowplanet,
Rainbow’s End, Huia, a camp experience - sailing for
the first time, the flying fox....... surfing at Piha
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3. Language
Actions verbs
“The old woman was in his way”
becomes
“The old woman barred his path”
“She laughed” - “She cackled”
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4. Active nouns - make the nouns do something i.e.
“It was raining” to become “Rain splashed down”
“There was a large cabinet” becomes
“A large cabinet seemed to fill the lounge”
Adjectives
the cat
the valuable cat
the old tortoiseshell cat
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5. Use of the senses: to describe and
develop the experiences, setting and
character:
•What does it smell like?
•What can be heard?
•What can be seen - details?
•What does it taste like?
•What does it feel like?
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6. Imagery
•Simile:
The sea looked as rumpled as a blue
quilted dressing gown. Or
The wind wrapped me up like a cloak.
•Metaphor:
eg. She has a heart of stone or
He is a stubborn mule or
The man barked out the instructions.
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7. •Onomatopoeia:
eg. crackle, splat, ooze, squish, boom,
eg. The tyres whirred on the road.
The pitter-patter of soft rain.
The mud oozed and squished through my
toes.
•Personification:
eg. The steel beam clenched its muscles.
Clouds limped across the sky.
The pebbles on the path were grey with
grief.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011

8. Skiing
Nicholas Van Nest, Grade 6
Icy frost whips against my goggles, the wind, tearing through my
clothes. My skis feeling as if they’re on fire as I speed down the hill
toward the stunt ramp. Suddenly I flash back to last year’s vacation
when I had been in the same boots racing down this very hill. I had
forgotten to lean back, lost both skis from the ramp, and done a flip
resulting in a head-plant. Well, that wasn’t going to happen this year, I
thought, as I gripped the ski poles tighter and leaned forward. The wind
was screaming in my ears as if even the elements were cheering me on.
Tilting backwards I pushed one last time, and let speed decide my fate.
On to the ramp I flew, shooting into the air losing all sense of gravity,
time, or space, just begging to pull through. SWOOSH! I felt vibrations
tingling the bottom of my skis. I’d made it!
“I’m alive! Oh-ya!” I screamed. “In all of ya’ll faces. You all disgraces.
Pick up the paces.”
In the snow, dancing in my skis, I realized a German couple was staring
at me wide-eyed, and I heard the husband say:
“Iz ziz how all crazy Americans act?”
Tuesday, 15 March 2011