The document provides guidance on using the "Be A Reporter" strategy to effectively take notes from websites. It explains that reporters use the "5 W's and an H" - who, what, when, where, why, how - to structure their questioning and notetaking. The strategy involves reading a website and asking these types of questions to pull out the most important facts to write down as notes. These notes will serve as a study guide for remembering the key information when returning to the source material later. Practicing this questioning approach makes the notetaking process more efficient over time.

1. Step 4
Be A Reporter
(The 5 W’s
And An H)

2. Background
Imagine you are working on a poetry
report for Language Arts. You have
found some great web sites with
definitions, examples and pictures.
The web pages are very long, and you
won’t remember all of it when you get
back to class to work on it. So, you
need to pull out just the facts. Here
are some tips on how to do this.

3. Objective
By the end of this lesson you will know
that:
The ‘Be A Reporter’ strategy can help in
writing notes and recording findings from a
web site.
 Not all information on a web page is helpful,
some of it can be ignored (omitted.)
 Referencing is a very important part of a
search.

4. Lesson
Being a reporter or detective is a tough
job, you need to be alert, and ask good
questions.
By asking good questions
and reading you will be able
to find out A LOT of good
information.

5. Who
What The 5 W’s and the H
The 5 W’s and the H
When
Where
Why
How
Reporters use the 5 W’s and the H, all the time to
ask questions. These 6 questions are THE most
helpful ones to ask yourself when reading.

6. Take the time to ask questions,
then be sure to make the time to answer them.
How this works is when you find a good
web site, you need to find the answers to
the 5 W’s and an H as you read.
By doing this, you are pushing yourself to
find meaning in the reading and pull out
the important information.

7. While you are looking at the web site,
ask yourself the question:
WHO
Who worked on the web site (authors)?
Who is the author talking about or to (if any)?
Who is the web site built for?
Who …
Write your answers down, these will become your notes.

8. WHAT
What question was the author answering?
What is the the main idea for the web site (title)?
What new things did you learn?
What …
Your answers, are the notes that will help you
remember what is important.

9. WHEN
When was the web page published (updated)?
When is the important event happening?
When …
Your notes will be a study guide, as they are the most
important pieces of information.

10. WHERE
Where is the main character or writer from?
Where is the action taking place?
Where are the headings and titles?
Where …

11. WHY
Why did you select this web site?
Why is the important event happening
Why….
Your notes will follow you when you go back to the
classroom, so write down ONLY what is important (the
answers to the questions.)

12. And last, but not least ask questions
which contain:
HOW
How did it happen?
How did they do that?
How did the story end?
How …

13. Were you a good reporter, did you get answers
to all of your questions?
Find out by looking at your
notes and see if they make
sense. Do you have all the
important points written down?
If not, go back and get the
answers.

14. Let’s Review
• By asking questions like a reporter, we can
pull the important facts from a web site.
• The 5 W’s and an H are helpful starting points
for your questions.
• Your answers become the review (study)
notes of the web site.
• Be sure to reference the web site you were
looking at for answers.
Remember the more you practice the
faster and easier this process will
become. Go complete Activity Sheet 4.