Response to 'The Lost Thing: Notes from a secondary classroom. Children’s Literature in English

This paper discusses students' responses to the picturebook The Lost Thing (Tan, 2000) and its film (2010). It describes a small-scale project in a secondary school in Portugal, which involved 16-18 year-old students, learning English as a foreign language. Following a socio-constructivist approach to language learning and the basic tenets of reader response theory, discussion and an interpretative stance to meaning making were encouraged. The aim was to foster students’ appreciation of the visual during their interpretative discussions as well as developing their English language skills. This paper demonstrates how the picturebook in particular afforded the students with opportunities for language development through talk. It closes with notes on the implications of using picturebooks and their films in the classroom.

Key words: picturebooks, film, The Lost Thing, Shaun Tan, older learners, response, interpretations, interthinking