Assignment 1: Practices Related to Death and Dying

A multicultural life span perspective of death and dying reveals that reactions to death vary from culture to culture and are affected by historical shifts and regions as well as the ages of both the dying individuals and their families. Watch a video clip of the Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch and discuss your reactions.

Tasks:

In a minimum of 200 words, post to the Discussion Area your responses to the following:

• Discuss your reactions to the clip.
• Conduct a brief Internet search to find cultures different from your own in terms of beliefs and practices related to death and dying.
• Describe your personal cultural beliefs and practices related to death and dying.
• Describe one positive practice related to death and dying from any culture. Demonstrate how it can alleviate the suffering with respect to death and dying.
• Lastly, for our final discussion question, think about all of the material we have covered to date in this course. What have you learned about life span development that was unexpected or has surprised you? What age group would you prefer to work with and why?
• support your answers with relevant readings by citing and referencing.  A minimum of two are required. 

Support your rationale and analysis by using at least two resources from professional literature in your response. Professional literature may include the Argosy University online library resources; relevant textbooks; peer-reviewed journal articles; and websites created by professional organizations, agencies, or institutions (websites ending in .edu or .gov).

Your discussion posts and all written assignments should reflect graduate level writing skills and appropriate use of APA style, including in-text citations and references.