Spiritual Care in Death & Dying, Grief & Loss

Greetings! We begin this course with reflection on personal experiences, beliefs and values around loss, grief, dying and death. Then we explore diversity in the grieving process and in the ways people make meaning of illness, aging and loss. We consider spiritual struggles related to these experiences, and we reflect on public grief. We have a number of film case studies in this course, and you will have opportunity to practice offering spiritual care with Vivian in the film Wit . You may choose to reflect on topical artwork for extra credit.

I say more about the course in this brief video:

PowerPt slideshow: IST2021 Introduction & Instructions.ppsx

PDF: IST2021 Introduction & Instructions.pdf

There are 2 required texts (please acquire you own copies):

Fersko-Weiss, H. (2017). Caring for the dying: The doula approach to a meaningful death . Newburyport, MA: Conari Press.

Porter, M. (2015). Grief is the thing with feathers . Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press.

You will read the entirety of Porter's book for Week 5. It's a quick read, but plan ahead.

Additional readings and videos will be provided on the Canvas course site with links on the instruction page for the week in which they are assigned.

You will participate in a number of graded discussion forums, each worth 50 to 100 points, depending on the week. Plan ahead for the Week 7 discussion , where you'll share what you learn from an interview with a funeral home/crematory provider or a palliative care/hospice provider.

You will also complete the following independent assignments, each worth 150 points:

Week 2: Reflect on personal beliefs and values around loss, grief, dying and death

Week 5: Create and reflect on a spiritual care conversation based on a film case study

Week 10: Final course reflections

Extra credit opportunities:

Beginning in Week 3, you have a weekly opportunity to contribute to an extra credit discussion related to death, dying, grief and loss as portrayed in artwork. Topics we address in this course are often challenging to communicate through words alone, so these discussions invite you to respond to course material in a more intuitive way. Extra credit posts are worth 10 points each, and one post per week is allowed for extra credit. Posts will appear as if they are worth 0 points; this is to avoid penalizing students that do not wish to participate. If you successfully complete an assignment, your grade will show as 10/0, and these extra points will factor into your final course grade.

Let me know if you have questions! I look forward to exploring these topics with you.

Kelly