Text Type: Nonfiction/Informational
Page Count: 24
Word Count: 1,453 

Text Summary
All About Chocolate is an informational book that is sure to make the reader's mouth water. Interesting facts about the history of chocolate, where and how cacao trees are grown, and the steps taken to make chocolate into candy are included. A "chocolate" timeline and consumer consumption chart provide additional details.  

About the Lesson

Targeted Reading Strategy

• Make connections to prior knowledge

Objectives

• Sequence events
• Identify simple and complete subjects and predicates
• Make and confirm or revise predictions about meanings of content vocabulary

Materials

• Book – All About Chocolate (copy for each student)
• Chalkboard or dry erase board
• Sequence, Subjects and Predicates, Content Vocabulary Prediction worksheets

    Indicates an opportunity to use the book interactively (All activities may be completed with paper and pencil if books are not consumable.)

Vocabulary

• Content words: cacao, conching, consume, fermentation, ingredients, machete, mills, mole, plantations

Build Background

• Involve students in a discussion about their favorite types of candy. If necessary, suggest chocolate bars as one of your favorites. Make a survey chart on the board and write the five most popular types of candy offered by students. Ask for a show of hands to determine which type students like. Tally the numbers and share the results with the group.
• Give students the Vocabulary Prediction Chart worksheet. Explain that they are to write what they know or think each word means. Tell them that after they have finished the book, they will make a checkmark if their definition was correct, or write the new definition they learned from reading the book.

Preview the Book

Introduce the Strategy: Make connections to prior knowledge

• Explain to students that having some prior knowledge of the topic they are going to read about, and making a connection with what they know while they are reading, helps them understand and remember the information in the book.
• Give students a copy of the book and have them preview the front and back covers and read the title. Have students discuss what they see on the covers and offer ideas as to what kind of book this is and what it might be about. Model how to use prior knowledge as you preview the book.
• Think aloud: My cousin used to make fudge for us on Saturday afternoons. Sometimes it was so soupy we had to eat it with spoons. We didn't care, though. It was always good. (Tailor comments to fit personal experience.)
• Direct students to the table of contents. Remind students that the table of contents provides an overview of what the book is about. Each chapter title provides an idea of what they will read in the book. After reviewing the table of contents, model using it as a way to make connections with prior knowledge. For example, say: I knew that chocolate came from beans because I've seen cacao beans in the organic food store. I've never really thought about what it takes to get from beans to a candy bar. It looks like I'll find out in this book. (Tailor comments to fit personal experience.)
• Have students preview the rest of the book, looking at photos, captions, and illustrations. Point out the timeline on page 19, the consumer chart on page 21, and the recipe on page 22.
• Show students the glossary and index and explain the purpose of each.

Introduce the Vocabulary

• Remind students of the strategies they can use to work out words they don't know. For example, they can use what they know about letter and sound correspondence to figure out the word. They can look for base words and prefixes and suffixes. They can use the context to work out meanings of unfamiliar words.
• Have students turn to page 5 to find the bold word cacao. Review or explain that when they see syllables written inside the parentheses like this they tell how to pronounce the word that comes before them.
• Model how to apply word-attack strategies. Direct students to the bold word fermentation on page 10. Model how they can use context clues to figure out the meaning of the unfamiliar word. Explain that the sentence the unfamiliar word is in tells that fermentation is some type of process that changes the chocolate beans on the inside. Tell students that sometimes a context clue provides enough information for a sentence or paragraph to make sense, but not enough to fully understand the word. Model looking up the word in the dictionary for a more complete definition (a chemical process which changes one organic substance to another). Have students follow along as you reread the sentence on the page with the dictionary meaning of the word.
• Remind students that they should check whether words make sense by rereading the sentence.
• For additional teaching tips on word attack strategies, click here.

Set the Purpose

• Have the students think about what they know about chocolate as they read the book.

Student Reading

• Guide the Reading: Have students read to the end of page 11. Tell them to underline the words or phrases in the book that tell an interesting fact about the way in which cacao beans are made into chocolate. If they finish before everyone else, they should go back and reread.
• Have students tell the information they underlined. Show students a world map like the one on page 5. Have them identify the countries where cacao trees grow. If possible, show students some cacao beans or a bean pod.
• Model making connections using prior knowledge.
• Think aloud: When I opened a bottle of apple cider I'd had in the cupboard for a long time, it had a funny smell. It smelled sort of rotten and kind of like alcohol. That's one of the ways something that has fermented can smell. (Tailor comments to fit personal situation.)
• Tell students to think about their knowledge of chocolates as they read the remainder of the book.

    Tell the students to make a small question mark in their books beside any word they do not understand or cannot pronounce. These can be addressed in the discussion that follows.

Reflect on the Reading Strategies

• Ask students what words they marked in their books. Use this opportunity to model how they could read these words using decoding strategies and context clues.
• Discuss how making connections with things in the text with something they know about keeps them actively involved in the reading process, and helps them remember what they read.

Teach the Comprehension Skill: Sequence

• Introduce and Model: Review or explain that many writers present the events in a book in the order in which they happen to help the reader understand what they read. Tell students that thinking about the sequence in which things are done, especially in a fact-filled book like All About Chocolate, will help them remember the important points.
• Tell students that the first step in making cacao beans into chocolate is taking the bean pods from the tree.
• Check for understanding: Have students look on page 8 to find the next step in the chocolate-making process (the pods are cut open and the beans are scooped out). Continue having students identify the steps in the process that are discussed on pages 10 and 11.
• Discussion: Ask students if they think the farmers in Mexico or South America make a lot of money growing cacao trees, and to explain why or why not. Have students explain why Cortez used cacao beans as money. Have students look at the timeline and identify the years the first chocolate shop opened. Have them identify the event that happened in 1894. Ask students to name as many chocolate Hershey products they can think of.
• Independent Practice: Give students the sequence worksheet to complete. Discuss their responses.
• Extend the Discussion:

    Instruct students to use the inside cover of their book to write a paragraph about whether or not they would like to eat chocolate three times a day and to explain why or why not.

Grammar, Mechanics, and Usage: Simple and Complete Subjects and Predicates

• Write the following sentence on the board and have students find it on page 4 in the book: People around the world love chocolate. Review or explain that every sentence has two parts – a simple subject and a simple predicate. Review that the simple subject tells who or what the sentence is about and that the simple predicate is a verb that tells who or what the subject is, says, or does. Ask students to identify the subject and predicate (people/love).
• Underline the words People around the world and explain that this is the complete subject of the sentence. The complete subject is all of the words that tell about the subject. Underline love chocolate and explain that this is the complete predicate. The complete predicate is all of the words that tell what the subject is or does.
• Check for understanding by having students identify the simple and complete subjects and predicates in the second sentence on page 6 (trees/have). Remind students that the word cacao is an adjective that tells what type of tree is being talked about in the sentence.
• Independent Practice: Give students the grammar worksheet to complete. Discuss their responses.
• Extend the Activity:

    Have students use the inside back cover of the book to write a sentence. Have students exchange with one another and identify the simple and complete subjects and predicates.

Vocabulary: Content Vocabulary

• Have students complete the Vocabulary Prediction worksheet. Tell them to make a checkmark in the column if the word meant what they thought it did before reading. If not, they are to write the definition.
• When completed, have students turn the worksheets over and write two sentences using two of the words. Have them erase the words and exchange with a partner. Each student should fill in the missing words in the sentences his or her partner wrote.

Independent Reading

• Allow the students to read their books independently or with a partner. Partners can take turns reading parts of the book.

Home Connection

• Give the students their books to take home to read with parents, caregivers, siblings, or friends.

Writing and Art Connection

• Have students write and illustrate acrostic poems using either the word chocolate or the name of their favorite chocolate candy. Show students the vertical format and provide an example, such as the one that follows. Provide dictionaries and thesauruses for students to use.

Chewy
Hungry
Oh goody!
Caramel
Offer
Love it!
Ate it!
Tasty
Exceptional

Geography and Math Connection

• Provide print and Internet resources for groups of students to research a country that grows cacao trees, such as Brazil, Costa Rica, or Peru. Have students find out how much each country contributes to world production of chocolate. Have students combine their information to make a pie chart that shows the distribution (1999 – Ivory Coast 42%, Ghana 14%, Indonesia 13%, Nigeria 7%, Cameroon 4%, Brazil 4%, Malaysia 3%, Others 13%).

Monitor students to determine if they can:

• use the strategy of connecting prior knowledge to understand nonfiction text.
• sequence events in nonfiction text.
• identify simple and complete subjects and predicates.
• make and confirm or revise predicted meaning of content vocabulary.