5 W Questions

Designed by: Jeanna Hoffman and Christi Jones
Satchel Ford Elementary School

1) Core Curriculum Objective:  Teach a variety of post-reading strategies for fiction and non-fiction selections:  retell the story, summarize, paraphrase, outline, apply self-questions, construct story map, semantic map, or arrays and verify predictions.  (2-CM13) (this lesson focuses on self-questioning.)

Grade level:    Second            Subject:  Language Arts

2) Overview:  This technique can be used with any story or novel.  This plan uses the first book in the Boxcar Children series.  Students will see how reporters use the 5 "W" questions to find out about information for newspaper articles.  Teacher will guide the students in developing the 5 "W" questions after reading chapters from The Boxcar Children.  After reading a chapter independently, students will develop, write, and answer 5 "W" questions to show they have understood the chapter.

3) Focus Question:  How can we understand stories better?

4) Time Frame:  three 55-minute class periods

5) Resources/ Materials: current newspaper article

chart paper

copy of The Boxcar Children for all students (Gertrude Chandler  Warner)

notebook paper, pencils, yellow highlighter

Averkey and TV

www.thestate.com

                                       http://pcpartsandpieces.com/books/bookpages/kidsreviews/rev_boxcar.html

                                       http://l2l.ed.psu.edu/success/lessons/lesson5/plad2%5Fl.htm

6) Culminating Assessment:  Students will develop and answer, in complete sentences, a question for each of the 5 “W” words (who, what, where, when, why) to show their understanding of chapter three of The Boxcar Children.  The teacher will use the following rubric to score the questions and answers:

5 “W” Questions Rubric  

7) Instructional Activities: Prior to the lesson go to www.thestate.com and select a newspaper article appropriate for classroom use.  One about a local event would probably be most interesting (i.e. sporting event, new store coming to town, water pipe breaking, power outage).  Make a copy for the students.

Activity One: Use the Averkey to project the site www.thestate.com onto the TV.  Let students share what they know about newspapers.  They may talk about the different parts of a newspaper.  Ask who writes the articles for the newspaper.  Show the selected article on the screen.  Lead a discussion of how a reporter would get the information to write a story.  Facilitate the discussion to conclude that reporters need to find the answers to the five “W” questions:  who, what, where, when, why.  Write these words on the board.

Pass out a copy of the newspaper article.  Read the article to the students.  Guide the students through the specific information the reporter had to gather, using the 5 “W” questions, to be able to write the article.  Let the students highlight the answers in the article.

Explain that asking and being able to answer these questions can help you understand a story better.  Tell them they will practice being reporters.

Share the title of the book.  Let students share anything they know based on the title.  Ask if anyone has read or heard of the book before.  Give each student a book.

Read aloud the first chapter of The Boxcar Children as the students follow along.  Lead a discussion of the chapter by asking the 5 “W” questions such as:

Who were the children? 

What were they doing at the bakery?

Where did they sleep?

When did Henry and Jessie decide to leave the bakery? 

Why didn’t they want to leave with their grandfather?

Let the students try and think of different “W” questions for the chapter.

Activity Two:  (Students should have had prior experience reading with a partner.)  Let students tell what happened in yesterday’s chapter.  Have students choose a partner. (Three can be in a group if there’s an odd number.)  Instruct the students to read chapter 2 together and then write and answer 5 “W” questions together.

Lead a discussion of the chapter by letting the students ask their questions and having other students answer them.

Discuss what makes a good question. (You have to read the chapter to be able to answer, it gives specific information, and the answer will have to give good details.)  Record student responses on chart paper.  Discuss what would not be a good question (ones that can be answered without reading the chapter, if the answer is about something that is not important.  Record student responses on chart paper.  Bad questions:  Who are the main characters?  What is the title of this book? Where was the book published?  Some better examples are:  Why are the children walking?  Where are they going?

Using the chart, let students look at their questions again and find some good examples.  They should explain why it’s a good question.  Also let them share some questions that are bad examples and again tell why.  Provide feedback by assisting them in figuring out a way to change the question to make it better.

Activity Three:  Discuss what has happened in the first two chapters.  Read the title of chapter 3, "A New Home in the Woods."  Let students predict what will happen.  Lead a discussion of what makes a good and bad question.  Display the charts made yesterday.  Assign the chapter for the students to read independently and write 5 "W" questions.  Remind them that the questions should be written in correct question format.  Tell them to pretend that they are reporters and need to find out exactly what happened in the chapter.

Have the students select a partner.  Have them exchange papers and answer the questions.  Tell them the answers must be in complete sentences. Students will be assessed using the culminating assessment and the rubric.

Close by leading a discussion about how asking these questions while reading a story helps you understand a story better.  Lead students to realize that you have to understand what’s going on in a story to be able to think of a question.  Good reporters ask these questions before they write a story to make sure that they have all the information and understand what’s happened.  Tell students they can use this technique while reading to understand the story better.

Extension Activities: Show students the web site http://pcpartsandpieces.com/books/bookpages/kidsreviews/rev_boxcar.html Students can read reviews that have been posted by other children and write their own reviews for any Boxcar Children book.

The following site, http://l2l.ed.psu.edu/success/lessons/lesson5/plad2%5Fl.htm, can be used to guide students in publishing a class newspaper to practice the 5 "W" questions technique.