pdf, 675.73 KB
pdf, 675.73 KB

Thinking of selecting The Best We Could Do (Thi Bui) as one of your comparative texts for Leaving Cert English? This free two-page PDF guide tells you everything you need to decide.

The Best We Could Do is the prescribed list’s only graphic memoir, which hands any combination its sharpest formal contrast: a story told in two channels, the adult’s captions and the scenes’ speech balloons, washed in a single warm colour, with wordless pages doing what prose cannot. Its refugee family history, from wartime Vietnam to an ambivalent America, gives Cultural Context rare and current ground, and its central question, what parents hand their children and what children make of it, pairs with almost any text about family.

Inside the guide: an at-a-glance table covering form, setting, narration, length, prescribed-list status and the book’s strongest modes; a clear synopsis; the themes the book carries; and an honest “before you teach” note on what needs care in the classroom and where the real teaching risk lies.

The guide then sets out how the book pairs in every comparison mode at BOTH levels, partner-agnostic so it holds whatever you set it against:

  • Higher Level: Cultural Context, Literary Genre, Theme or Issue, and General Vision and Viewpoint.
  • Ordinary Level: Hero, Heroine and Villain; Relationships; Social Setting; and Theme.

The companion Student Textbook and Teacher Guide (full exam-ready analysis and complete teaching support) are available separately from The Prescribed Shelf, or together in the Complete Bundle.

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A bundle is a package of resources grouped together to teach a particular topic, or a series of lessons, in one place.

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The Best We Could Do for the Comparative Study (HL) - Complete Bundle

Everything you need to teach *The Best We Could Do* for the Leaving Cert English Comparative Study (Higher Level): Student Textbook and Teacher Guide in one download. Designed for the Leaving Certificate English Comparative Study at Higher Level, the bundle covers all four modes: Cultural Context, Literary Genre, Theme or Issue, and General Vision and Viewpoint. Every comparison point is partner-agnostic, so the set works whatever texts you pair the graphic memoir with. ### **What's included (two PDF files)** - **Student Textbook (31 pages):** continuous, exam-ready analysis of the book, written for students to read independently. Each mode chapter opens with a "Reading for this mode" primer and "What the examiners ask", works through the book's key moments with close readings and technique tables, and ends with a sample comparative paragraph (with slots for the student's second text), "Setting this text against others" notes, and a comparison grid in which the *The Best We Could Do* column is already filled in and the Text 2 and Text 3 columns are left for the student's own combination. Original, SEC-style practice questions for every mode close the book. Licensed for the purchasing teacher to copy for their own students. - **Teacher Guide (27 pages):** the preparation done for you. Before-you-teach and sensitive-content notes; the book for the teacher (story and structure, characters, the world of the book, themes, how it is told, and the outlook); a key-moments bank and a quotation and reference bank, each entry attributed to its moment in the book; all four modes broken down (what examiners reward, where the book is strong, what to teach, the errors to pre-empt); a workable teaching sequence and the misreadings of *The Best We Could Do* to pre-empt; notes on running the textbook's comparison grids, sample paragraphs and practice questions; coupling guidance; assessment essentials (PCLM marking, the PEAL paragraph shape, timing); and question-angle banks drawn from recent SEC papers. The comparison grid rows are identical across every Prescribed Shelf comparative Student Textbook, so if your other texts are covered too, the three books line up row by row for your exact text combination. Buy the bundle and save on the separate prices. Written by a practising teacher.

£14.99

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