What is your greatest accomplishment in life?
Life Review Assignment
SWK 3390
In this assignment, you will be conducting a life review with someone over the age of 65. A life review is a reminiscing process that many social workers and therapists use to help guide an individual to make meaning of one’s life. You can interview whomever you like—a relative, an acquaintance, a nursing home resident, etc. (but they MUST be 65 years of age or older). This life review can also serve as a “legacy” which may be given to the participant, their family members or others for posterity.
As this can often be a lengthy process, it may take you more than one visit to obtain the needed information from your participant; plan your time accordingly. And PLEASE thank the participant for their time—a hand-written thank you note and providing them a final copy of the life review would be ideal.
Your paper should be 5-6 pages in length and should be in APA format. Since you will be writing this paper on ONE individual, you will NOT need to reference within the body of your paper—but you WILL need to create a reference page. You should provide a summary of the information. You may use some direct quotations.You must write it in a narrative style (not verbatim interview questions and answers) and please remember to be DETAILED.
The following are suggested ideas to include when creating a life review. Not every question has to be asked—but DO be prepared before your interview and have a general idea of which questions you would like to ask your participant. If you ask a question that they prefer not to answer, that is fine—accuracy is not the objective. Focus on having a meaningful conversation and experience.
10 points of this assignment are 3 peer reviews that will open the day after this assignment is due. Please review your peers’ submissions, provide constructive feedback, and then rate the submission from 0-140 points. Each review is anonymous and selected randomly. Your 10 points will be based on the thoroughness of your review.
- Name and age
- Childhood/Adolescence
- Where did you live?
- Who lived in the home with you?
- What do you remember most about your childhood home?
- What do you remember most about your parents? Grandparents?
- Do you have any favorite stories about your siblings?
- What is your favorite childhood memory?
- Where did you attend school as a child? Were you a good student?
- Did your family take vacations together? If so, where did you go?
- Who was your best friend? What kind of things did you like to do together?
- What were your goals as a teenager?
- Did you have a job as a teenager? What were your job duties?
- Who was your first love and how did you meet?
- Young adulthood/middle adulthood
- Where did you live after you left your family home?
- Did you go to college?
- Did you get married? Where did you get married? What was your wedding like?
- Did you have a career? Did you like your career?
- Were you in the military?
- Did you do any traveling as a young/middle adult?
- Did you have children? What is your fondest memory of each of your children?
- What was the greatest thing you taught your children?
- Did you have any struggles as a young/middle adult that you had to overcome?
- What were your goals as an adult?
- What were your hobbies as an adult?
- General
- What is your greatest accomplishment in life?
- If you had a chance to go back in time, is there anything you would have done differently?
- What was the happiest time of your life?
- What do you want your friends/family to remember the most about you?
- What are the most important lessons you have learned in life?
- What are the best things about being the age you are now?
- What are the worst things about being the age you are now?
