Who-What-When-Where-Why-How?
A comprehensive questioning framework that uses the six fundamental questions to ensure learners explore a topic from all angles, preventing gaps in their understanding.
What is who-what-when-where-why-how??
- Present a topic, event, text, or stimulus for investigation
- Provide the six question stems: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?
- Learners generate specific questions using each stem
- Use the questions to guide investigation, discussion, or writing
How it works
The 5W1H framework (Who, What, When, Where, Why, How) ensures comprehensive coverage of a topic. Each question stem probes a different dimension: Who identifies the people involved. What identifies the events, actions, or facts. When establishes the time frame. Where establishes the location or context. Why explores causes, motivations, and reasons. How explores processes, methods, and mechanisms.
The framework works as both a questioning tool and a comprehension check. As a questioning tool, it helps learners generate a full set of investigative questions before beginning research. As a comprehension check, it reveals which dimensions of a topic learners understand and which they have missed.
The six questions are not equal in difficulty. Who, What, When, and Where tend to require factual recall. Why and How require analysis, inference, and explanation. Teaching learners to recognise this hierarchy helps them understand that some questions demand deeper thinking than others.
The framework can be presented as a graphic organiser with the topic in the centre and six branches, as a table with six rows, or as a set of question cards. The visual structure helps learners see that a topic has multiple dimensions that all need attention.
Classroom example
A Year 8 Humanities class in a Neath Port Talbot school is investigating the Rebecca Riots. Learners use the 5W1H framework to generate questions: Who were the rioters? What did they do? When did the riots happen? Where in Wales did they occur? Why did people riot? How did they organise themselves? The Where and When questions are answered quickly from the textbook. The Why and How questions require deeper investigation and generate the richest discussion, including connections to contemporary protests about unfair taxation.
Build thinking into your curriculum
Track thinking tools across every AoLE and progression step.
Join the waitlistCurriculum for Wales connection
Who-What-When-Where-Why-How develops the "Plan" strand of thinking skills by providing a systematic approach to investigating any topic. It builds cross-curricular literacy through structured questioning and supports the Four Purposes by developing "ambitious, capable learners" who can approach any topic with a comprehensive inquiry framework.
Rainbow Curriculum's Thinking Tools lens helps you plan where systematic inquiry frameworks are used across your curriculum, ensuring learners have strategies for investigating topics thoroughly across all AoLEs.
Tips
- Display the six questions permanently in the classroom as a reference for independent work.
- Encourage learners to start with the easier questions (Who, What, When, Where) to build confidence before tackling Why and How.
- A common pitfall: treating the six questions as a worksheet to fill in rather than a framework for genuine inquiry. The questions should lead to investigation, not just brief answers.
- Use the framework for note-taking: learners organise notes under the six headings.
- Combine with question bubbles for younger learners who need additional scaffolding.
Related tools
Fishbone Diagram
A graphical organiser shaped like a fish skeleton where causes branch off a central spine leading to an effect, helping learners map cause-and-effect relationships.
Learners Set Questions
A strategy where learners generate their own questions about a topic, developing deeper understanding because creating good questions requires more thinking than answering them.
QuADS Grids
A question-classification tool where learners sort questions into four categories based on where the answer can be found: in the text, in my head, in another source, or it cannot be answered.
Question Bubbles
A visual scaffold where question stems are displayed in speech bubbles around a central stimulus, prompting learners to generate questions at different cognitive levels.
Source Square
A structured analysis tool where learners examine a source from four perspectives, each occupying one quadrant of a square: content, origin, purpose, and reliability.
Source: Adapted from "How to develop thinking and assessment for learning in the classroom", Welsh Assembly Government, Guidance 044/2010.