At the end of each module, you are challenged to demonstrate your integrated knowledge of the week’s material by putting course resources and discussion into thoughtful conversation with your own life and the life of the world. Remember that your goals are to demonstrate that you understand and are applying course material (whose ideas you CITE parenthetically) to your own life and the world. Guidelines: Your entry should be 400-600 words. Anything less than a full, double-spaced page is probably not sufficient. I do NOT expect you to treat this reflection as an essay with a thesis statement that you defend throughout the essay. I DO expect that your reflection will consist of well-written, well-organized paragraphs with topic sentences and unifying themes. I DO expect that you will use this opportunity to dig into the ideas that have most intrigued you, bothered you, excited you, and baffled you, and to bring those ideas into conscious dialogue with your own life today and your hopes and plans for yourself and our world. I DO expect that you will use and cite course material. I DO expect that you will illustrate your points with specific examples. I will offer a few particular questions or ideas that may be helpful for you to consider in this journal assignment. You are not restricted to those themes; they are there to help you get started. Week 4: You have multiple options here. On some level, I am asking you to engage in the issues around care for the elderly and/or death and dying. Even taking the variety of options, do not be too tightly constricted by the instructions. Modify in ways that make sense for you, your circumstances, and your emotional comfort with the subject matter. Be sure to demonstrate your knowledge by using and citing course resources and framing your response in light of some of the personal (Panicola) and social (CST from Cameron and Welch) ethical principles. Option A: Perhaps with guidance from The Conversation Project Links to an external site., engage in “the conversation” with a loved one. Write about that experience. Option B: With help from the Stanford Letters Project Links to an external site., write the “What Matters Most,” “Who Matters Most Life Review,” or “Bucket List” letter. Then, journal about that experience. Option C: What do you think about end-of-life care and decisions? Do not try to answer all of the questions below, but they may help point you in directions to get you started: Do you think that we as a society adequately grapple with our finitude (especially illness and death)? How might you personally make sense of finitude? Explain. (Well, maybe “explore” rather than “explain.”) How are resources for end-of-life care distributed and accessed? Do you think this resource distribution is reflective of the values we as a society ought to hold? Explain. Have you had experience with end-of-life dilemmas? How has that influenced the way you think about them? Gawande contends that “assisted living is far harder than assisted death, but its possibilities are far greater, as well” (245). What do you think? Remember to reflect on your experiences and/or the real life of our society
