The purpose of this paper is to identify and characterize the structure of the historical genre and discursive mechanisms utilized by Chilean 8th graders as evidenced in a written task. This task consists of students responding to a historical question using on historical evidence. Our analytical framework and methodological design are based on the notion of historical genre and Appraisal Framework used in Systemic Functional Linguistics (Coffin 2006; Martin & Rose, 2008; Martin, 2009). Considering the characterization of historical genres developed by Coffin (2006) and Martin and Rose (2008), the concept of 'historical account' genre is reformulated and defined as a 'historical account writing task.' Our analysis helped identify and characterize four stages to develop the historical account: a) Start, b) Contextualization, c) Reformulation and c) Closing. We unpack each stage into smaller phases. The results show that there exists a set of criteria afforded by the proximity of the response to the historical evidence, which are expressed in the stages and phases characterized in this study. This set of criteria shapes the quality of the response as evidence of students' historical understanding.