HW 27 - Visiting an unwell person

Please visit a person that is unwell - sick and/or dying in a hospital, senior home, or elsewhere. You could choose to visit a family member, friend, neighbor, acquaintance, or stranger.

What do you notice about the situation, about the person's approach to being unwell, about your own reactions and thoughts? What social conditions helped to construct this situation? What aspects of this situation simply result from human vulnerability and mortality?

What insights from the book, movies, and/or guest speaker apply to the situation of the person you're visiting?

Please write a 3-5 paragraph narrative account and analysis of your visit. Please maintain the privacy of the person you visit (unless they say otherwise) by leaving them anonymous and with no easily identifiable descriptions. Your goal should be to write an engaging and well-crafted TRUE STORY of the visit with lucid and sharp insights about dominant practices of illness & dying embedded in the story.

Due Saturday, January 1, at 9pm.

HW 28 - A separate post will include the comments about "Best part" from mentor/younger commenters on your HW 27, and your comments from & to your peer commenters. HW 28 will be due Tuesday, January 4 at 8:30pm.

HW 26 - Looking back & forward in unit

Please list 4-5 important ideas, insights, or items of information that you have learned in this unit so far (and the source).

What source(s) have been most helpful for you in coming to a deeper understanding of our culture's dominant social practices around illness and dying? How & why?

What questions and areas do you think its most important to explore in the final two weeks of the unit (on our return)? How should we best explore those topics/questions?

Please write two or more paragraphs addressing the three questions above. Due Friday, Dec. 31, 9pm.

HW 25 - Response to Sicko

For your response to Michael Moore's 2007 polemical examination of the problems, history, and alternatives to the US health care system please include the following components;
1. A one paragraph precis of 125 words or less - Michael Moore's 125 word version of the film, proportional to the film.

2. Evidence -
a. Two specific points of evidence that Michael Moore used to bolster his argument.
b. Why those pieces of evidence were important for supporting his thesis.
c. There was a controversy following Sicko's release instigated by people who questioned some of the evidence and arguments conveyed in the film. Please examine this source & one of Moore's responses. Also, this one, about halfway through includes a direct confrontation.
d. Additionally, please independently fact check one of those pieces of evidence by conducting your own research. Please evaluate whether the evidence used was legitimate and accurate and cite your sources.

3. Response -
Please write a 1-2 paragraph reaction to the movie. You can use the questions below to get yourself started.
What was most important in the excerpts of the movie that you watched? What ideas and feelings struck you as most crucial? How did the movie affect your perspective on the dominant social practices around illness & dying in our culture?

Due Tuesday, 8:30am December 21.

HW 24 - Illness & Dying Book, Part 3

Read your assigned book.

Think about what insights it offers regarding dominant social practices of illness & dying in our culture and also alternatives to those dominant practices.

Identify the book you're reading with full bibliographic information (author, title, publisher, year published).

Please write a précis, in 1-2 paragraphs, of the whole book. What would the author say if asked in an elevator to sum up his/her book in 1 minute?

Please quote 3-5 particularly insightful, arresting, or thought-provoking passages in the final chunk of the book (provide page numbers). For each quote provide either a paraphrase or response.

Finally please write a paragraph discussing your thoughts and experiences in relation to this book's portrayal (in the last 1/3rd) of how people go about being sick and dying. Aim for bright, insightful, slicing prose.

Due Monday, Dec. 20 at 8:30am.

HW 23 - Illness & Dying Book, Part 2

Read your assigned book.

Think about what insights it offers regarding dominant social practices of illness & dying in our culture and also alternatives to those dominant practices.

Identify the book you're reading with full bibliographic information (author, title, publisher, year published).

Please write a précis of a section you identify in the second 1/3rd of the book (a particular chapter, a range of pages, a couple chapters).

Please quote 3-5 particularly insightful, arresting, or thought-provoking passages in the middle chunk of the book (provide page numbers). For each quote provide either a paraphrase or response.

Finally please write a paragraph discussing your thoughts and experiences in relation to this book's portrayal (in the middle 1/3rd) of how people go about being sick and dying. Aim for bright, insightful, slicing prose.

Due Friday, Dec. 17 at 8:30am.

HW 21b - Comments

To reiterate, please create a separate post - HW 21b - to post your comments for other people, copied from the "Comments" section of their blog. It should look like this:

For Alan, Your most beautiful line was, "Your last paragraph in its entirety spoke many truths to me, sometimes in ways I never even thought about myself (how pain represents the courage to feel). " I think this is so beautifully written, and so true. There can be a certain bliss in pain - but only when embraced and accepted, not fought. If we don't feel these losses we can never value having."

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Underneath the comments you copied that you wrote, please do a dashed line and copy the comments that your T/W team wrote for you. This will save me approximately 30 minutes of time, over the 90 blogs. If the people didn't label their relationship to you, please do that for them.

HW 22 - Illness & Dying Book Part 1

Read your assigned book.

Think about what insights it offers regarding dominant social practices of illness & dying in our culture and also alternatives to those dominant practices.

Identify the book you're reading with full bibliographic information (author, title, publisher, year published).

Please write a précis of a section you identify in the first 1/3rd of the book (a particular chapter, a range of pages, a couple chapters).

Please quote 3-5 particularly insightful, arresting, or thought-provoking passages in the book (provide page numbers). For each quote provide either a paraphrase or response.

Finally please write a paragraph discussing your thoughts and experiences in relation to this book's portrayal (in the first 1/3rd) of how people go about being sick and dying. Aim for bright, insightful, slicing prose.

Due Saturday, Dec. 11 at noon.

HW 21 - Expert #1

Please list 3-10 of the most important insights & experiences shared by the guest speaker. Write them clearly and with some eye to beauty.

Then please write 1 paragraph each about 2 items on the list connecting her insights/experience to your insights/experience.

What ideas or questions did Beth's presentation spark? Please articulate these "further thoughts" in the 3rd and final paragraph of your post.

Due Wednesday, Dec. 8, 9pm. Comments by T/W Team due Friday 9pm. To reiterate, the comments from above and below should identify, quote, and explain what they liked about your strongest line/idea and then EITHER offer their own ideas on that OR suggest ways you could have made your strongest chunk even better. The peer T/W members should use one of the 5 comment modalities we discussed in class (especially depth/insight or beauty).