Combining Picturebooks and Poetry as Blended Genres to Teach Life Science

This article introduces the concept of combining poetry and picturebooks as blended genres and shares an instructional strategy that K–8 teachers can use with blended genres to help students learn important concepts in ELA and life science. It begins with background on the important relationship between science and literature. Next, it describes fundamental differences between paired text and blended genres and connects blended genres to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Then, it shares examples of blended genres and a sample of an instructional strategy that can be used with blended genres to teach important concepts in Life Science. It ends with a final thought.