Lost Thing

Product Information

This activity is intended for students to look closely at the images and simply observe before attempting any interpretations. It is suggested the process is modeled with a shared image and then be done individually with subsequent sharing done in groups. Viewing The Viewer‘: postmodern picture books for teaching and learning in secondary English education

The point about The Lost Thing is that it’s uncategorisable – which goes for this new stage work as much as the creature at the centre of its story. It’s an opera, or a musical, or a dance work harnessing the talents of the disabled and non-disabled dancers of Candoco and a small ensemble of similarly various musicians, in tandem with the Royal Opera. The source is Shaun Tan’s picture book about a boy who finds and looks after a strange creature – a timely choice for a family show, given that it is on some primary schools’ curriculum.Using these categories, students can identify other elements in the book that could symbolise something greater than the thing itself. Elements of construction: Activity Non sequitur:a set of panels seemingly unrelated in relation to images or words (there is no example of this in The Lost Thing). McLoud. S., 1993. Other artistic influences mentioned by Tan that relate more to the Utopia scene are those of Hieronymus Bosch and the Spanish Surrealists. A simple Google image search of Spanish Surrealists will provide plentiful images to give students a sense of the colour, vibrancy and the often bizarre subject matter of Surrealism; qualities that can also be seen in the Utopia image. One of the most famous works by Bosch is The Garden of Earthly Delights, a triptych depicting the Garden of Eden and Hell on the left and right panels, and the central panel involving people carousing with each other and animal figures in a strange landscape dotted with odd architecture. The link provided here is of a virtual tour of the expansive painting and it needs to be noted that there is adult content which some teachers may find unsuitable for Year 7/8 students. Adaptations

This is a comprehensive resource by ACMI that offers many avenues to consider the book in conjunction with its film adaptation. Well, I’ve loved the other books I’ve read by this author-illustrator, and he recently won an Oscar for a film adaptation of this book (an Academy Award winning animation short I’ve not seen, yet) so I was sufficiently curious to get and read a copy of the book. And, yes, I want to see the film; I can see it being an excellent short. As students respond to each of these questions they can attach their post-it notes under the appropriate heading. Each of their contributions should be initialed for later use and to help facilitate discussion. The initial contributions can serve as stimulus for an early discussion with the teacher choosing some interesting responses and asking students to expand on their thoughts.Shaun Tan describes the soundscape of The Lost Thing animation as offering another dimension to the artwork, as if he was given another colour palette to use.

NSW Government – Ways of Viewing and Teaching Picture Books. This offers a concise and extensive glossary of visual literacy concepts.One of the central themes teachers can explore is belonging. To get students thinking about different aspects of belonging, a mind map can be crafted. This can either be done on paper or, for those teachers wishing to employ digital learning tools, an online mind-mapping application like Bubbl.us or Popplet.