We refer to people in non fiction, as people, and we refer to people as characters in a work of fiction. You did acknowledge the who in your gist statement. Gist statements are meant to be general. With this protocol we get very specific about the people or characters in the text.

You will use a table to keep track of all of the people or characters. You will take notes about each person or character. Some characters may be more prominent than others and so you may have more notes for some of the people or characters.