Death, Dying, and Bereavement

The first step is to interview someone–or more than one person–who has had direct experience with death and/or dying. You may wish to interview two people about the same issue. Some possibilities include: • someone who has had someone close to him/her die; his/her spiritual advisor (rabbi, priest, minister, etc.); • a case worker at a hospice; a dying person at a hospice; someone who doesn′t work with hospice but who treats terminally ill people; • a person in a nursing home; their care givers; their insurers; • clergy and funeral directors; • someone with AIDS; someone who works with AIDS patients; • a cop; a medic; You MUST get permission from the person to use their interview for a paper; find out if they want their own named used or not; if you want to tape the interview, get permission for that; be polite and sensitive, but don′t be afraid to ask for what (you think) you want to know; be open to hearing things that might upset you or challenge you. The next step is to reflect on data you have collected. Since the interview itself does not a project make, you must now reflect on, think about, ask questions about what you have discovered in the interview(s).Think about the approach you want to take with this material. Consider the following questions (these are only suggestions–what questions could you add? Which are irrelevant to you? Why?): What did you expect? What did you find? How did you influence what you discovered? What did you forget/not think to ask? Who is this person? Did anything they say corroborate or contradict the theories we′ve been reading/discussing in class? What did they know that the theorists didn′t? Which parts of the interview were most compelling to you? Why? Which parts will you focus on/use in writing up this project? Through this reflection, try to get a sense of what your main questions/issues are. Put your own experience into conversation with the interview material. What do you need to say about this material? Develop a thesis/theme/main idea that you think reflects this material and explain how and why. It can be as simple as ″what I learned from this interview is…″; or you can be more complex and actually put this into conversation with the readings. (If you′re feeling really daring, you may want to ″borrow″ material from a group member- with their permission, of course–and compare your experience/interview with theirs.) Next, write up your findings. You may want to focus on those things which are most compelling. I′m only recommending 4 pages. Do a final revision on the paper.