Coming to Terms Essay

Major Course Move & Learning Objective
Utilize a text’s project as a framework to examine an artifact or event (Engaging)

Context:
We’ve reflected on how Biesta’s examination might change the way we think about education and what it is supposed to do, and we’ve used his writing as an occasion to think about the goals and roles of education. We explored his main aims in relation to emancipatory education, the materials/voices he uses toward those aims, and the way he constructs his argument, and we began connecting his discussion to your own experiences or observations.

Task:
In this assignment, you will expand on your previous work with Biesta’s article to write a 1000-1200 word essay that uses Biesta’s argument(s) about emancipatory education in order to examine the stories you and your classmates curated in your Humans of Education assignments. Choose three narratives that you think Biesta’s argument might help you explain (only one can be your own narrative).

● What aspects of Biesta’s discussion seem particularly relevant to the stories you’re examining?
● How does Biesta make you think about these stories in new ways? What in your experience or in these stories might not be explained by Biesta?

Incorporate specific moments from the stories you choose in order to demonstrate where you see Biesta illuminating something new or interesting about the stories or the patterns you observed in the previous reflections on the Humans of Education stories.

Evaluative Criteria:
● Uses Biesta’s argument(s) about emancipatory education as a framework to examine the Humans of Education narratives
● Identifies Biesta’s aims, or what the goals of his article are
● Assesses the limits of Biesta’s discussion for thinking about what issues Humans of Education narratives raise (including the limits of Biesta’s aims, methods, and his use of evidence/examples)