1. Individual Relationships
Mini lesson — 5th grade

2. Connection:
We have been learning strategies to help us look closely at literary text to better understand characters, events, settings, and themes.
Some of these strategies include asking questions, visualizing, and making inferences about our reading.
These strategies have helped us compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story.

3. Teaching Point:
Today we will learn how to ask questions to better understand characters in informational text.
Specifically, we will focus on the relationships between individual characters.

4. Teaching:
A relationship is the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected.
Interactions are the actions between two or more people, ideas, events, or concepts.
I am going to read a few pages of the book Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki.
To give you a better context of this text, here is a quick blurb about the story so you will have a better idea of what was going on during the time period this book describes.

6. Baseball Saved Us is told from the perspective of a Japanese boy sent to live in an internment camp with his family during WWII.
The story describes how his father used baseball as a means of distraction from the harsh reality of their new lives.
The most obvious aspect of writing craft utilized in this book is tension.
The major conflict comes in the form of America's treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
However, the author also creates an internal conflict within the little boy.
According to Fletcher, "internal struggles can produce unique forms of tension as the character gets torn between conflict impulses." In this particular instance, the little boy feels a sense of worry and shame over his situation in the internment camp.

7. He tries to reconcile his life before the camp with his life during and after his internment.
One senses his confusion over the events of WWII (Pearl Harbor), his forced removal to the middle of nowhere, and the hatred shown toward Japanese Americans.
Although we know the ultimate outcome of WWII, the book closes with signs of hope, but no real solution to the boy's conflict.

8. After Reading:
To better understand the relationship or interactions between the narrator and the guard, I am going to ask myself some questions:
Why is this topic important? This topic is important because it shows how unfairly Japanese Americans were treated in America during WWII.
What perspective does the author take on this topic? The author tells the story through the eyes of the narrator, the boy in Camp.
How does the author reveal each character? The author uses words to describe the narrator’s physical appearance. In addition, the author describes the narrator’s actions, thoughts, physical environment, and how other people treated him. On the other hand, the author gives limited information about the guard. The reader only knows the guard as the man in the tower who is always watching.
How does one of the characters change? Why? The narrator was not that good at baseball. He tried to be better because he thought the man in the tower was looking.

9. Now that I know more about the role that each character plays in this text, and the importance of the topic, I have a better understanding of the interactions between the narrator and the guard.
The guard and the narrator have limited interaction because it is the guard’s job to make sure there is “order” in Camp.
He is the authority figure and cannot befriend the people in camp.
The narrator probably resents the guard because the guard is ALWAYS watching which may intensify the narrator’s awareness of his loss of privacy and freedom.

10. The relationship between the guard and the narrator is that the guard is the one in control of regulating the narrator’s life.
However, it seems that the narrator is beginning to try to take some of that control back. 
By asking questions about characters, perspective, and understanding of topic, readers are able to explain the interactions and relationships between individual characters.

11. Link
Today we learned how to explain the interactions or relationships between individual characters in informational texts.
As you read, try looking for answers to the questions discussed to help you better understand interactions and relationships between characters in informational text.

12. What perspective does the author take on this topic?
We can ask ourselves questions that will help us explain the interactions and relationships between characters in informational text.
Why is this topic important?
What perspective does the author take on this topic?
How does the author reveal each character? 
How does one of the characters change? Why?