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Read Part 2 (pp. 53-127); Complete Student Packet Worksheets for Part 2

Distribute the Experience Cards to four students in your class. Each student will receive one of four cards with a position. Give the students a minute to read their experience card and get into character. Next, read aloud the following situation: "The school wants to ban junk food to help students develop healthier eating habits." Have each student take a turn to present his or her position in a debate forum, using their experience card as a basis for their presentation

will remind students that perspective is how someone thinks and feels about an event or person in the world. One influence on our perspective is the prior experiences that we have had (other influences include culture, age, gender, parents’ political beliefs, etc.). For example, if I have fond memories of eating sour candy with my best friend on the first day of school every year since Kindergarten, I might oppose a ban on junk food in schools, because I value that tradition. However, if I experienced getting cavities drilled due to eating a large amount of candy in school, I might support a junk food ban in school. Similarly, in a novel (whether poetry or prose), a character’s perspective is affected by past experience. Good readers examine how specific experiences impact a character’s perspective on problems or events in the story to understand a character more fully.

I will examine a character’s perspective by first identifying a character’s thoughts and feelings about an event or problem in the text. Then, I will think about whether a past experience may have influenced that thinking, and I will record any details I can find about that memory or past event. Finally, I will use details about the past to explain why the character thinks and feels the way they do about an event or problem in the text.

I will model explaining how a past experience impacts a character’s present perspective. In Part 2 of Home of the Brave, Kek goes to his first day of school. I will examine how his past experience might impact his perspective on attending an American school. See Kek’s Perspective on Going to School. First, I will draw an eye on chart paper or the board, because perspective is how a character “sees” a situation. I will identify and record Kek’s thoughts and feelings about attending school in the pupil of the eye. Kek says that he is excited, but nervous (his “belly leaps like a monkey on a tree” and he says that going to school is a “fine honor”). Kek is in awe of how shiny and big the school is (“big enough to graze a herd of cattle in”). He considers it a “place for leaders of men to work in,” not students like himself. Finally, Kek is surprised to learn that he does not need to pay for his desk.

Next, I will think about which memory or experience of Kek’s impacts his perspective. Kek talks about his school at the refugee camp, so I think this experience might have a direct impact on him. I will write details about this experience in the background/whites of his eye. He says that at the camp, their teacher often couldn’t attend school because of men with guns, and h was too ill to attend many days, so school was irregular. When the teacher came, he or she often came with only a book or a piece of chalk. Kek remembers that at school, stories would give him hope and help him forget about the sadness of the camp and the war.

Finally, I will explain how this experience impacts his perspective. Because Kek’s last school was at a refugee camp without many resources and without a regular teacher, Kek is amazed by the school building and the resources available to him for free. Also, because Kek was given hope in the school at camp, he is excited to attend school in America and considers it an honor. An American student might begrudge going to school, but Kek finds school to be a place to escape life’s harder circumstances.

Ask: "How can I explain how a character’s perspective is influenced by a prior experience?" Students should answer that you should look at a character’s perspective of an event or problem in the book, and then record the character’s actions, thoughts, and feelings. Then, identify a past experience that has a connection to the present event. Finally, you will use the evidence you have gathered to explain how the past impacts the present.

will examine how Hannah’s experience in foster care influences her perspective on Kek’s struggle. We will draw an eye on chart paper and label it Hannah’s Perspective on Kek’s Struggle. Note: See Hannah’s Perspective on Kek’s Struggle for example responses. 

First, we will record Hannah’s thoughts and feelings about Kek’s struggle in the pupil of the eye on our chart. Since the story is told from the point of view of Kek and not Hannah, we can find Hannah’s thoughts and feelings through things that she says or through actions that express her thoughts and feelings. Hannah wants to help Kek adjust to life at school and at home. She lends him money, helps him work the washing machine, and helps him buy new plates for his aunt. We can tell by her actions that she is forming a friendship with him and likes him very much.

Next, we will describe her experience as a foster child and record this information in the background/whites of her eye. We know that she moved around a lot because she refers to her last foster family as “neat freaks,” whereas her current foster family is “a mess.” When she tells Kek about her family, she cries a little, because she is upset that her mother is in rehab. She doesn’t answer when Kek tries to be hopeful, which tells us that she does not have much hope. Also, we see that she is angry at her mother because she does not write back.

Finally, we will draw a conclusion about her perspective on Kek’s struggle. We will conclude that she supports and helps Kek because she understands what it means to be moved around to different homes and to have everything seem unfamiliar and uprooted. We remember she said to Kek that “waiting is hard too” when they first met in the cafeteria. She was relating to waiting to hear from her mother. She also said to Kek, “But I kind of know what it’s like to not know things.” This meant that her experience in foster care helps her relate to Kek’s experience as a refugee because when you arrive in a new place, you often don’t know about the things around you.

will examine Ganwar’s perspective on living and working in the U.S. by completing the Ganwar’s Perspective Worksheet in your Student Packet. (See pages 17-18 in the Student Packet.) On the worksheet, you will identify Ganwar’s feelings about finding work by recording his actions and words that express those thoughts and feelings. Then, you will identify and describe his previous experience and explain how his experiences influence his perspective.

will come together to share Ganwar’s thoughts and feelings about living and working in the U.S. We will discuss what other experiences Ganwar may have had that made him so jaded? Ask, "How can you tell that Ganwar is angry?"