A teacher's guide to question stems organized by Bloom's Taxonomy, Webb's DOK, and NGSS Science & Engineering Practices and Crosscutting Concepts. Includes a free printable poster and a generator that customizes stems for your grade and subject.
Question stems are the sentence starters teachers use to write consistent, cognitively-targeted questions — the difference between "Tell me about photosynthesis" and "What evidence in the diagram suggests photosynthesis is slower at lower temperatures?" One is a fishing expedition; the other tells you exactly what thinking you're asking for.
This is the guide most teachers need but never get in PD: one place with stems for the four frameworks that actually show up in observations and lesson plans — Bloom's Taxonomy, Webb's Depth of Knowledge, NGSS Science & Engineering Practices (SEPs), and NGSS Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs). Plus a free printable poster and a generator that produces classroom-ready stems for your specific grade, subject, and framework mix.
Free Printable: Bloom's Taxonomy Question Stems by Subject — 200+ ready-to-use stems for Science, Math, ELA, Social Studies, and SEL — one page per level. PDF, print-ready. (Custom DOK / NGSS posters generated below.)
Generate a question stems poster for your classroom — Pick a grade, subject, and framework (Bloom's, DOK, NGSS SEP, or CCC — or all four). AssessmentWiz produces a printable poster tuned to your students' developmental level. Free, no signup to try.
A question bank gives you 500 pre-written questions on your topic. A question stem gives you the pattern to generate an unlimited number — tuned to the text on your desk right now, the discussion happening in period 4, or the exit ticket you're writing in the last two minutes of prep. Stems are infrastructure; banks are consumables.
Research on classroom questioning (Walsh & Sattes, Chin, and the Wiliam formative-assessment work) converges on the same point: teachers who post stems and reference them during instruction ask more cognitively-demanding questions on average — and their students, in turn, ask better questions of each other. The stems become part of the classroom language.
You do not need all four. Pick the framework(s) that match your subject and district expectations:
| Framework | What it organizes | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Bloom's Taxonomy (Revised) | Cognitive process — from Remember to Create | All subjects, all grades; the default in most teacher-prep programs |
| Webb's Depth of Knowledge | Cognitive complexity — from recall to extended thinking | Standardized-test alignment (state assessments, SBAC, PARCC); ELA and math especially |
| NGSS Science & Engineering Practices (SEPs) | What students do as scientists — modeling, arguing from evidence, analyzing data | K–12 science; required for NGSS-adopting states |
| NGSS Crosscutting Concepts (CCCs) | Big ideas that thread across science disciplines — patterns, cause/effect, systems, scale | K–12 science, especially for units that bridge biology/chemistry/physics |
The revised Bloom's Taxonomy organizes cognitive process into six levels. Higher does not mean better — it means different. A rich unit uses all six.
| Level | Sample stems | Signal words in student answers |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Remember | "Define…" / "List three…" / "Which of the following is…" | Facts, terms, dates |
| 2. Understand | "Explain in your own words…" / "What is the main idea of…" / "Give an example of…" | Paraphrase, summary, category |
| 3. Apply | "How would you use ___ to solve…" / "What would happen if…" / "Demonstrate how ___ works in a new context." | Procedure carried out, transfer to new situation |
| 4. Analyze | "Compare and contrast…" / "What evidence supports…" / "What is the relationship between…" | Component parts, patterns, inferences |
| 5. Evaluate | "Do you agree with…? Defend your position." / "Which solution is most effective? Justify." / "Critique the argument in…" | Judgment with criteria and evidence |
| 6. Create | "Design a ___ that solves…" / "Propose an alternative…" / "Develop a plan for…" | Original synthesis, novel product |
Each Bloom's level has its own deep-dive with 40+ subject-specific stems and common mistakes to avoid:
Webb's DOK is often confused with Bloom's, but the two measure different things. Bloom's categorizes the type of thinking. DOK categorizes the complexity of the thinking — how many mental steps, how much reasoning, how much evidence a student has to coordinate. A question can be high Bloom's but low DOK ("Create a haiku about spring") or low Bloom's but higher DOK ("List every factor that could explain why our class garden yields dropped this year").
| DOK Level | Sample stems | Time on task |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Recall | "What is…?" / "Identify…" / "Label the parts of…" | Seconds to a minute |
| 2. Skill / Concept | "Compare…" / "Explain the relationship…" / "Predict what happens when…" | A few minutes |
| 3. Strategic Thinking | "Justify your reasoning with evidence." / "Which solution is best and why?" / "Design a way to test…" | Part of a class period |
| 4. Extended Thinking | "Investigate ___ over time using multiple sources." / "Propose and defend a solution to…" / "Synthesize findings across ___ into…" | Days to weeks |
Full breakdowns with 40+ stems each and worked examples for every level are in the DOK Levels Explained → guide.
The 8 SEPs describe what students do as scientists — not the content they learn, but the practices they enact. Post these stems in a science classroom and observers will see three-dimensional learning in real time.
| SEP | Sample question stems |
|---|---|
| 1. Asking questions & defining problems | "What could we test to find out…?" / "What data would answer this question?" / "How would you define this problem in a way you can investigate?" |
| 2. Developing & using models | "Draw a model that shows how ___ happens." / "What does this model represent — and what does it leave out?" / "How would you revise this model given the new data?" |
| 3. Planning & carrying out investigations | "What variables do we need to control?" / "Which measurement tool is most appropriate here — and why?" / "What would count as evidence in this investigation?" |
| 4. Analyzing & interpreting data | "What pattern do you notice in the data?" / "What does this graph tell you that the data table doesn't?" / "Which data points don't fit — and what could explain them?" |
| 5. Using mathematics & computational thinking | "What quantity is changing — and how do we measure it?" / "How could we use a simple formula to predict what happens next?" / "What does the slope of this graph mean physically?" |
| 6. Constructing explanations & designing solutions | "Using evidence and reasoning, explain why ___." / "What claim does this evidence support — and what reasoning connects them?" / "Design a solution that meets these constraints…" |
| 7. Engaging in argument from evidence | "What is the strongest counter-argument to your claim?" / "Whose evidence is stronger — and why?" / "What additional evidence would change your position?" |
| 8. Obtaining, evaluating & communicating information | "Is this source reliable — and how do you know?" / "How would you communicate this finding to a non-scientist?" / "What information is missing from this article that you'd need to evaluate the claim?" |
Pair SEP stems with your unit's Disciplinary Core Idea and one Crosscutting Concept to hit the "three-dimensional" standard. The NGSS Performance Task Generator is built around exactly this three-dimensional structure.
The 7 CCCs are the big ideas that recur across every science discipline. A student who has internalized them can ask productive questions in a biology unit and transfer that habit to chemistry the next year.
| CCC | Sample question stems |
|---|---|
| 1. Patterns | "What pattern do you notice?" / "How could this pattern help us predict…?" / "Does this pattern hold at a different scale?" |
| 2. Cause & effect | "What caused this to happen?" / "What is the mechanism — how does the cause produce the effect?" / "What would change the outcome?" |
| 3. Scale, proportion & quantity | "How much bigger / smaller / longer / faster?" / "What changes when we look at this at a different scale?" / "Does the relationship stay proportional?" |
| 4. Systems & system models | "What are the parts of this system?" / "What crosses the boundary of the system?" / "How would the system change if ___ were removed?" |
| 5. Energy & matter | "Where does the energy come from — and where does it go?" / "What matter is conserved here?" / "How does energy transfer between these parts?" |
| 6. Structure & function | "How does the structure suit the function?" / "If the function needed to change, how would the structure need to change?" / "What structural feature makes this work?" |
| 7. Stability & change | "What keeps this system stable?" / "What could push it out of balance?" / "Is this a fast change or a slow change — and how do you know?" |
The Bloom's PDF above is a solid all-subject starting point. But if you teach 4th-grade math or 11th-grade AP Biology, you want stems tuned to your students' actual reading level and your subject's specific vocabulary. The Question Stems Poster Generator does that in one click:
Try the Free Question Stems Poster Generator →
Question stems are sentence starters or partial questions ("What evidence supports…", "How does the structure suit the function…", "Compare and contrast…") that teachers use to write cognitively-targeted questions consistently. Stems are infrastructure — they let you generate an unlimited number of questions at a target cognitive level, tuned to the specific text, topic, or moment in class.
Bloom's stems categorize the type of thinking (recall, apply, analyze, create). DOK stems categorize the complexity of the thinking (how many mental steps and how much reasoning coordination). A question can be high Bloom's but low DOK, or the reverse. Post both if your district expects both; otherwise pick the one your standardized tests use.
Yes, if you can. The 8 SEPs describe what students do as scientists; the 7 CCCs describe the big ideas that thread across disciplines. Together they are two of the three dimensions in three-dimensional NGSS learning (the third being Disciplinary Core Ideas). Observers looking for three-dimensional instruction want to see stems from both.
Yes — the free Bloom's stems PDF above prints one page per level at 14-pt so it reads from across the room. The Question Stems Poster Generator exports .docx you can print landscape or portrait, laminate, and post. Works in Word and Google Docs.
Once a quarter is a good default. Student attention on static classroom text drops sharply after ~6 weeks. Rotating the emphasis (Bloom's one quarter, DOK the next, NGSS practices during your inquiry unit) resets attention and prevents the posters from becoming wallpaper.