Exploring personal stories
Assignment Instructions
(1) Select two online personal stories (related to death, non-death related losses, grief) that, at a minimum, explain the person’s experiences following the loss. Losses may include non-death related loss. Ideally, the personal stories you select should have helped you to understand what the person felt before, during, and following the loss. At a minimum, there needs to be information in the story that discusses experiences following the loss. The loss should be experienced by the person writing the blog/article or YourTube video.
(2) Provide a brief introduction to your paper. Introductions work best when written last.
(3) Provide a brief description of the person (e.g., demographics, type of loss, when the loss occurred).
(4) Include a summary of the stories to provide context to their experiences for an outside reader. Use relevant details from the story that will help you to make connections to the course content/textbook.
(5) Using the information you presented in the summary, make specific connections to what you know and understand about death, grief, and loss throughout the semester (e.g., course content, textbook). Be specific.
Include information about developmental perspectives. For instance, what did you find relevant to the experiences discussed by the person in the story to developmental perspectives highlighted in the textbook and/or from what you already know regarding development? To what extent did information about developmental perspectives highlighted in the textbook/course content enable you to understand their experience more fully?
At a minimum, three specific concepts (e.g., theories, models, perspectives) from the textbook/ course content should be included in each story. Please do not repeat the same concepts for each story; use a variety to demonstrate your knowledge. Note: Writing that a person has a non-death loss is not considered a specific connection, as this is general information. Another example: Indicating the person’s partner died by suicide and the book discussed suicide, is not considered a specific connection.
Things to ponder as you think about specific concepts. What did you notice from the story that you can relate to grief experiences discussed in the course content/textbook?
Examples: Was the death traumatic for the person? Did they experience disenfranchised grief? What were some of their mediators of mourning? Secondary losses? Did they experience ambiguity with their loss? Did they experience symbolic/psychosocial losses? How did they cope?
(6) As part of the conclusion, discuss specifically what you learned from reading these stories.