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Asking and Answering the 5 W's and H Questions
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To collect key information about your writing topic or something you are reading, ask and answer the 5 W's and H questions—Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? These questions are sometimes called journalistic questions because all news stories should answer them. Gather answers to the 5 W's and H questions anytime you are writing about or trying to understand the key parts of an event, an experience, or something that happened.
5 W's and H Questions
- Who was involved?
- What happened?
- When did it happen?
- Where did it happen?
- Why did it happen?
- How did it happen?
Your Turn Find answers to the 5 W's and H questions in a news story.
- Choose an interesting news story from a newspaper, blog, or Web site.
- Read the story closely.
- Search for and record answers to the 5 W's and H questions about the story. (Hint: The answers should appear near the beginning.)
- Share the answers with your classmates to help them understand the story.
Your Turn Answer the 5 W's and H questions about the best thing you did or experienced last weekend.
Asking and Answering the 5 W's and H Questions by Thoughtful Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at k12.thoughtfullearning.com/minilesson/asking-and-answering-5-ws-and-h-questions.