












































Georgia Journal of Literacy 
2025, Vol. 47(1), pp. 98–108 
https://doi.org/10.56887/galiteracy.178 
ISSN: 2833-7611 

Teaching Tips  

 
 

 

CONTACT Dr. William P. Bintz, Professor of Literacy Education, College of Education, Health, and Human Services; 
School of Teaching, Learning, and Curriculum, Kent State University, Kent, OH; email wbintz@kent.edu. 
 

Combining Picturebooks and Poetry as Blended 
Genres to Teach Earth and Space Science  
 
William P. Bintz 
Kent State University, Kent, OH 

 

ABSTRACT 

Recent research introduces the innovative concept of blended genres, the 
combination of picturebooks and poetry to teach across the curriculum. In science, 
for example, blended genres are described as an effective instructional tool to teach 
important concepts in life science (Bintz, 2025). This article builds on and extends 
this emerging and exciting body of research by 1) presenting blended genres of 
picture books and poetry to teach earth and space science, 2) reviewing the value 
of integrating poetry and science, the important relationship between paired text and 
blended genres, and the connection between blended genres and Next Generation 
Science Standards (NGSS) and Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Standards, 
and 3) sharing examples of blended genres and samples of instructional strategies 
that K–8 teachers can use to help students learn important concepts in earth and 
space science. 

KEYWORDS 

blended genres; 
picturebooks and 
poetry; science 
literacy; earth 
and space 
science; 
intertextual 
connections  

 
his article builds on recent research that introduces the innovative concept of blended 
genres, the combination of picturebooks and poetry to teach across the curriculum. In 
science, for example, blended genres are described as an effective instructional tool to teach 

important concepts in life science in life science (Bintz, 2025). This article builds on and extends 
this emerging and exciting body of research by presenting blended genres of picture books and 
poetry to teach earth and space science.  

It begins by reminding readers about the important relationship between poetry and 
science, the fundamental differences between paired text and blended genres, and the connection 
between blended genres and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and Common Core State 
Standards (CCSS) Standards. Next, it shares examples of blended genres and samples of 
instructional strategies that K–8 teachers can use to help students learn important concepts in earth 
and space science. 
 
Poetry and Science 
According to McClure (2013), “There is much to be learned from both poetry and science, and 
when they are combined, the potential for learning grows” (p. 13). Among other things, “science 
is rich in content and poetry offers powerful language: together they can both inform and inspire” 
(Vardell & Wong, 2015, p. 15). Historically, science and poetry have been treated as dichotomies; 
that is, scientists do science and poets do poetry. Today, research continues to indicate that 
integrating poetry and science has many benefits for teachers and students (Rule et al., 2014). 
 
 

T 

mailto:wbintz@kent.edu


Bintz 99 
 

   
 

Blended Genres, CCSS, and NGSS Standards 
Blended genres consisting of poetry and science are consistent with the NGSS, which state that 
“literacy skills are critical to building knowledge in science” (NGSS, 2013, Appendix M, p. 1). 
Similarly, the CCSS identify skills for high proficiency in literacy, and the Common Core Reading 
Anchor Standards identify skills for high proficiency in reading (National Governors Association 
Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). To ensure 
consistency, NGSS identifies connections between CCSS literacy and CCR reading skills and 
science content demands in grades 6–12. Blended genres are a curricular resource that can integrate 
NGSS, CCSS, and CCR standards when used with instructional strategies. 
 
Paired Text & Blended Genres 
Blended genres are rooted in the rich history of paired text (Bintz, 2015). Traditionally, a paired 
text consists of two conceptually related texts, e.g., topic, theme, genre, etc. (Harste et al., 1988). 
A blended genre is one way to pair text. It consists of two texts, each text representing a different 
literary genre. For example, a blended genre can include a picturebook and a poem. Like paired 
text, blended genres have much power and potential to support intertextuality, the process of 
creating intertextual connections across two texts.  

The following section contains examples of picturebooks and poems as blended genres, 
along with samples of instructional strategies to teach and learn important concepts in earth and 
space science. For teachers unfamiliar, I share some practical guidelines for developing and using 
blended genres with instructional strategies that highlight intertextuality (Figure 1). 
 
Figure 1: Guidelines for Teachers  

I used the following guidelines to help students use blended genres and instructional strategies to create and record 
intertextual connections across both texts. I share these guidelines with teachers, especially those who are unfamiliar with 
blended genres and instructional strategies that highlight intertextuality. Teachers can put blended genres into practice using 
demonstration, engagement, and reflection (Smith, 1981).  

Demonstration is “Watch me do this,” in which teachers are experts and students are apprentices. Teachers provide 
demonstrations of how they make intertextual connections across a blended genre, introducing this process with a prompt 
like, “I wonder how these two texts are related?” Then, teachers read aloud each text, identify, and record intertextual 
connections, and explain how each connection relates to both texts.  

Engagement is “Now, let me watch you do it,” in which teachers use a gradual release of responsibility (Fisher & 
Frey, 2021) by inviting students to demonstrate their current understanding of and ability to make intertextual connections 
across a blended genre. Teachers can read aloud each text, pausing during and after each reading, and students record and 
share intertextual connections.  

Reflection is “What do we now know about making intertextual connections that we didn’t know before?” and 
highlights the notion that moving forward also means looking backward. Students reflect on the whole experience and share 
their new understandings about blended genres and intertextuality. Teachers use reflections to make next-step curricular and 
instructional decisions and continue providing students with a gradual release of responsibility. 

 
Blended Genres and Instructional Strategies 
Earth Science 

Snowflake Bentley (Martin, 2009) and “Snowflakes” (McCord, in Hopkins, 2002) are a blended 
genre in earth science. Snowflake Bentley is a picturebook biography of Wilson Bentley, a young 
boy who studied snowflakes with a microscope. Later, his parents purchased a camera with a 
microscope so he could photograph snowflakes and study their intricate designs. Bentley shared 



100 Georgia Journal of Literacy 47(1)  
 

   
 

his photographs and designs with the world. After his death, he was honored with a monument in 
tribute to Snowflake Bentley. “Snowflakes” is a poem combined with Snowflake Bentley to create 
a blended genre. 

Snowflakes 
Sometime this winter if you go 
To walk in soft new-falling snow 
When flakes are big and come down slow 
To settle on your sleeve as bright 
As stars that couldn’t wait for night, 
You won’t know what you have in sight— 
Another world—unless you bring 
A magnifying glass. This thing 
We call a snowflake is the king. 
Of crystals. Do you like surprise? 
Examine him three times his size: 
At first you won’t believe your eyes. 
Stars look alike, but flakes do not: 
No two the same in all the lot 
That you will get in any spot 
You chance to be, for everyone 
Come spinning through the sky has none 
But his own window-wings of sun: 
Joints, points, and crosses. What could make 
Such lacework with no crack or break? 
In billion billions, no mistake? 

Interlocking Spheres of Intertextual Connections is an instructional strategy that invites 
students to create and record intertextual connections between two texts. Figure 1 illustrates this 
strategy using the blended genre of the picture book Snowflake Bentley and the poem 
“Snowflakes.” Students read each text and record a significant intertextual connection in each 
sphere, using “Both texts…” to introduce each connection. 
  



Bintz 101 
 

   
 

Figure 2: Interlocking Spheres of Intertextual Connections 

 
Space Science 

Maria’s Comet (Hopkinson, 2003) and “The Comet” (Florian, 2007) are a blended genre 
in space science. Maria’s Comet is a picturebook biography of Maria Mitchell. Born in 1818 on 
Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, Maria became America’s first woman astronomer. As a young 
girl, she learned much about stars from her father, an astronomer who used his telescope to study 
flickering stars and mountains on the moon. He also searched for comets. Inspired by her father, 
Maria read about early astronomers such as Copernicus and Galileo while aspiring to be an 
astronomer herself. She hoped to see a comet. One night, Maria joins her father on the rooftop to 
peer through her father’s telescope. Suddenly, she sees a star bursting into view, a bright spark. 
One star very far away but it seems so close. It lights her heart. “The Comet” (Florian, 2007) is a 
short but informative poem about the characteristics of a comet. 

The Comet 
Ice, rock, dirt, 
Metal and gas— 
Around the sun 
A comet may pass. 

Snowflake 
Bentley & 

“Snowflakes”

Both texts refer to critical 
instruments to study 

snowflakes. “Snowflakes” refer 
to using a magnifying glass to 
see and analyze snowflakes 

because they are so small. In
Snowflake Bentley, Wilson 

Bentley’s mother gave him a 
microscope to look at snow. 

Later, his parents bought him a 
camera, one that was as big as 

a cow. 

Both texts acknowledge the 
mystery of snowflakes. 

“Snowflakes” asks, What 
makes billions and billions of 
snowflakes each year with no 

mistake? In Snowflake Bentley, 
Wilson Bentley solved the 

mystery of studying snowflakes 
in the long-term through 

photography. 

Both texts describe an 
important and surprising 

characteristic of snowflakes; 
namely, no two snowflakes are 
the same. “Snowflakes” states 

“Do you like surprise?” and 
“Stars look alike, but flakes do 

not.” In Snowflake Bentley, 
Wilson discovered that 

snowflakes had intricate 
patterns and unlike his 

expectation, no two patterns 
were alike.

Both texts refer to snowflakes 
as crystals. “Snowflakes” uses 

metaphors to describe 
snowflakes as the “the King of 
crystals” and as “lacework.” In 

Snowflake Bentley, Wilson 
Bentley learned that 

snowflakes are crystals with six 
branches. 



102 Georgia Journal of Literacy 47(1)  
 

   
 

A dirty snowball 
Of space debris, 
The biggest snowball 
That you’ll ever see.  

 A Z-Map is another instructional strategy that invites students to create and record 
intertextual connections between two texts. Figure 2 illustrates this strategy with the blended genre 
of the picturebook Maria’s Comet and the poem “The Comet.” Students read each text and record 
a significant intertextual connection in the middle of the alphabetic letter Z, using “Both texts…” 
to introduce each connection. 
 
Figure 3: Z-Map 

Maria’s Comet  

Maria’s Comet (Hopkinson, 2003) is a picturebook biography of Maria Mitchell, America’s first woman astronomer. 
As a young girl, she learned about stars from her father, an astronomer who used his telescope to search for 
comets. Maria aspired to be an astronomer, too. One night, she peered through her father’s telescope and saw a 
distant star bursting into view. It lights her heart 

Metaphor: Both texts use the metaphor of a dirty snowball to describe comets. 
 
Properties: Both texts describe the properties of comets as consisting of frozen gases, including water, ice, and 
dust particles. 
 
Scientific Instruments (telescopes): Both texts highlight the picturebook directly and the poem indirectly, that 
telescopes were used by astronomers to discover, track, and analyze comets. 
 
Pathway: Both texts describe comets as traveling around the sun. 

“The Comet” 
 
Ice, rock, dirt, 
Metal and gas— 
Around the sun 
A comet may pass. 
 
A dirty snowball 
Of space debris, 
The biggest snowball 
That you’ll ever see. 

 
Final Thoughts 
Combining picturebooks and poems as blended genres is an innovative and exciting way to pair 
text. This article shared examples of blended genres and samples of instructional strategies using 
blended genres. It also provides a curricular resource of additional examples (Table 1) of blended 
genres to teach various essential topics in Earth and space science. K–8 teachers are encouraged 
to use this resource to collaborate on developing and implementing blended genres in both English 
Language Arts (ELA) and science classrooms.    
 Combining picturebooks and poems as blended genres can ignite teacher interest in 
exploring more innovative ways to pair text. For example, recent research has advanced the idea 
of developing paired texts using expanded formats of texts (Lupo et al., 2019; Tracy et al., 2016). 



Bintz 103 
 

   
 

Expanded formats of texts include newspapers, cartoons, field guides, websites, tweets, blogs, 
songs, podcasts, etc.  

Similarly, recent research has advanced the idea of developing paired text using linked 
texts (Cappiello & Dawes, 2021; NWESD Communications, 2019; Pytash et al., 2014; Cummins, 
2017). Linked texts consist of non-traditional texts like multimodal and multi-genre texts, 
including, among others, digital texts, YouTube videos, news articles, and podcasts. These non-
traditional texts offer students different formats to read, voices to hear, and perspectives to 
consider.  

This article aims to spark new thinking for teachers who are unfamiliar or inexperienced 
with combining picturebooks and poems as blended genres or using inked texts, including 
multimodal and multi-genre texts, to teach across the curriculum. Either way, let the new thinking 
begin! 
 
Table 1: Additional Blended Genres in Earth and Space Science 

Picturebook Poem 
Zoo in the Sky (Mitton, 2006) “The Constellations” (Florian, 2007) 
Hurricane (Weisner, 1992) “Hurricane” (Lewis, 2007) 

Why Do Leaves Change Color? (Krupinski, 2015) “Why Leaves Change Color in the Fall” (Lewis, 
2007) 

The Island That Moved: How Shifting Forces Shape Our Earth 
(Hooper, 2004) “The Lithosphere” (Lewis, 2007) 

Pass the Energy, Please! (McKinney, 1999) “Sun’s Busy Day” (Scholastic, n.d.) 
Drop: An Adventure through the Water Cycle (Moon, 2021) “Water Cycle” (Hayley, n.d.) 
The Incredible Water Show (Frasier, 2004) “Water Cycle” (Hayley, n.d.) 
Nature Did It First (Ansberry, 2020) “Counting on the Woods” (Lyon, 1998) 
The Pebble in My Pocket: A History of Our Earth (Hooper, 
2015) “Geology” (King, 2005) 

Tsunami! (Kajikawa, 2009) “Tsunami” (Lewis, 2007) 
It Started with a Big Bang: The Origin of the Earth, You, and 
Everything Else (Bal, 2019) “Twas the Night” (Scieszka & Smith, 2004) 

There was a Black Hole that Swallowed the Universe (Ferrie, 
2021) “Cosmology and Scientists on My Mind” (Deo, 2022) 

Waiting for High Tide (McClure, 2016) “Danceline at High Tide” (Esbensen, 1995) 
Born with a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story 
(Morgan, 2002) “The Big Bang” (Lewis, 2007) 

No One Walks on My Father’s Moon (Curtis, 1996) “Quarrel Between Truth and Falsehood Forever” 
(Reza, 2008) 

Sector 7 (Weisner, 1999) “Cloud Watching” (Reeve, 2024) 
Lessons from Mother Earth (McLeod, 2010) “Nature’s Way” (2024) 
Pluto and the Planets: Children’s Storybook about the Solar 
System (Awa, 2022) “The Great Beyond” (Florian, 2007) 

There was a Black Hole that Swallowed the Universe (Ferrie, 
2021) “The Black Hole” (Florian, 2007) 

Maria’s Comet (Hopkinson, 2003) “The Comet” (Florian, 2007) 
Pluto’s Secret: An Icy World’s Tale of Discovery (Weitkamp, 
2015) “Pluto” (Florian, 2007) 



104 Georgia Journal of Literacy 47(1)  
 

   
 

Come See the Earth Turn (Mortensen, 2010) “Scientific Method at the Bat” (Scieszka & Smith, 
2004) 

Mr. Archimedes Bath (Allen, 1998) “Scientific Method at the Bat” (Scieszka & Smith, 
2004) 

Archimedes and His Numbers (Professor, 2017) “Bring Back Archimedes” (Smith, 2006) 
Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me (Carle, 1991) “Moon-Catchin Net” (Silverstein, 1981) 
The Little Dipper (Stanley, 2015) “Little Dipper” (Bager, 2007) 
Dinosaur Lady (Skeers, 2020) “Dinosaur Bone” (Schertle, in Hopkins, 2002) 
Galileo Galilei (Munoz, 2020) “Galileo’s Universe” (Lewis, 2005) 
Stars (Simon, 2006) “Stars” (Sandburg, in Hopkins, 2002) 
When I Heard of the Learn’d Astronomer (Whitman, 2004) “Stars” (Sandburg, in Hopkins, 2002) 
Feel the Wind (Dorros, 2000) “What Are You, Wind?” (O’Neil, in Hopkins, 2002) 
The Relationship of the Moon and the Tides (Professor, 2017) “Strictly for the Birds” (Fatchen, 1987) 
Telling Time: How to Tell Time on Digital and Analog Clocks 
(Older, 2000) “Tide Talk” (Fatchen, 1987) 

The Waterhole (Base, 2001) “A Cliché” (Merriam, 1964) 
I Am the Solar System (McDonald, 2020) “Spinning Song” (Shields, 1995) 
Maria’s Comet (Hopkinson, 2003) “Halley’s Comet” (Lewis, 1998) 
A Birdwatcher’s Guide to Chickadees (Harasymiw, 2015) “Chickadee’s Song” (Smith, 2014) 
When Cloud Became a Cloud (Hodgson, 2021) “Water Cycle Poem” (Mr. R., 2002) 
Feel the Wind (Dorros, 2000) “Wind On the Hill” (Milne, 2022) 
The Sun: Shining Star of the Solar System (Perdew, 2021) “Voice of Unnamed Star” (Bagert, 2006) 
Super Stars: The Biggest, Hottest, Brightest, Most Explosive 
Stars in the Milky Way (Aguilar, 2010) “The Brightest Star” (Bagert, 2006) 

Round the Garden (Glaser, 2000) “Photosynthesis Poem” (Mr. R., 2002) 

 
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.com/poem/quarrel-between-truth-and-falsehood-forever/ 
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& Schuster. 
Schertle, A. (2002). Dinosaur bone. In L. B. Hopkins (Ed.), Spectacular science: A book of poems. 

Simon & Schuster. 

https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/wind-on-the-hill-by-a-a-milne
https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/wind-on-the-hill-by-a-a-milne
https://allpoetry.com/poem/11910121-Cloud-Watching-by-Jenny-Reeve
https://allpoetry.com/poem/11910121-Cloud-Watching-by-Jenny-Reeve
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/quarrel-between-truth-and-falsehood-forever/
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/quarrel-between-truth-and-falsehood-forever/


108 Georgia Journal of Literacy 47(1)  
 

   
 

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9781338011098.html 

Shields, C. (1995). Spinning song. In Lunch money and other poems about school. Allyn & Bacon. 
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Sourcebooks Explore. 
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_archimedes_807345  
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Received: October 23, 2024 | Accepted: February 7, 2025 | Published: May 20, 2025 

https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/books/suns-busy-day-sources-of-energy-science-poem-9781338011098.html
https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/books/suns-busy-day-sources-of-energy-science-poem-9781338011098.html
https://shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/books/suns-busy-day-sources-of-energy-science-poem-9781338011098.html
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/bring_back%E2%80%8C_archimedes_807345
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/bring_back%E2%80%8C_archimedes_807345

	Poetry and Science
	Blended Genres, CCSS, and NGSS Standards
	Paired Text & Blended Genres
	Figure 1: Guidelines for Teachers

	Blended Genres and Instructional Strategies
	Earth Science
	Figure 2: Interlocking Spheres of Intertextual Connections

	Space Science
	Figure 3: Z-Map


	Final Thoughts
	Table 1: Additional Blended Genres in Earth and Space Science

	References
	Picturebooks and Poetry Cited

