Your task will be to interview an older nursing home or assisted living facility resident each week for a total of 8 weeks and compare the interviews with interviews conducted with one of your older relatives (e.g., one grandparent or great-grandparent).

At the beginning of the semester, you will be paired with a nursing home or assisted living facility resident at one of the nursing homes/assisted living facilities that are listed at the UF Office of Community Service Volunteer Gateway at http://www.union.ufl.edu/ocs/currentpartners.asp. After receiving volunteer training, which is provided at each facility and also in class, you will visit the resident each week for at least 30 minutes and interview him or her about issues that we discuss in class. (You do not need to interview the respondent for 30 minutes but may take part of the time to make small talk or tell the respondent about your own life.) You will start with a life history review, i.e., you will ask the resident about his or her past life in a chronological order starting with his or her childhood. The life history review chart will help you to conduct those interviews which may take several sessions (take your time). After completing the life history review, you can then ask about issues that were neglected or that you may want to explore in further detail.

You will conduct the same kind of interviews with one of your older relatives for comparison purposes. Therefore, you should choose a relative that is of the same gender and approximately of the same age as your nursing home interviewee. You may conduct the interviews with your relative by phone if necessary but all interviews with the resident are to be conducted face-to-face.

If you like, you may tape-record the interviews but this is not required or even recommended. However, immediately after each interview you need to write down what happened during the interview and what the respondent said IN AS MUCH DETAIL AS POSSIBLE. The following are guidelines for writing interview notes.

1. Start all interview notes on a new page. The heading should identify the respondent, the interview number, and the date (e.g. "First Interview with Grandma on September 12 between 2:00 and 2:30 p.m."). Make sure that all participants remain anonymous. If you want to use names give respondents pseudonyms.
2. Write down the location of the interview for each interview (regardless of number of visits).
3. Describe the environment of the respondent (does not need to be repeated if the environment does not change in subsequent visits).
4. Describe the respondent in detail, i.e., age, gender, race, physical appearance, etc. (only for the first visit).
5. Describe what the respondent is doing when you arrive. Give a physical description of the participant – clothes etc.
6. Give your impression of the participant – (mental alertness, physical demeanor, etc.)
7. Describe any events that seem noteworthy during the interview in chronological order (e.g., visits from other persons, medication dispensed, frequent stops due to fatigue, etc.)
8. Report the interview in chronological order and in as much detail as possible.
9. Include any information that you think would be noteworthy.

The interview notes for each interview session should be AT LEAST 1 full page long, i.e., AT LEAST 24 lines (typed and double-spaced, Times New Roman 11 font), but might need to be longer.

In addition, you should analyze each set of notes and compare the resident interview with the interview of your relative. Start each analysis on a new page. The heading should identify the analysis and the interview number (e.g., "Analysis of 1^st Set of Interview Notes"). The analysis should be AT LEAST ½ page long, i.e., AT LEAST 12 lines, and contain your ideas, hypotheses, assumptions, impressions, etc. This means that the analysis cannot be simply a summary of the interview notes.

To summarize, you will write AT LEAST 2½ pages per week for 8 weeks for your interview project. Each completed set of interview and analysis notes per week is worth 2.5% of your final grade for a total of 20% of your final grade.

During the week of September 6 you will do your first interview and write your first set of interview and analysis notes, which will be due on Thursday, September 15, during regular class time. I will review the notes and the analysis and return them to you with my comments. The remaining sets of interview and analysis notes are due on November 29 either as part of the optional term paper or as a separate submission. However, if you experience difficulties, have questions, or would like me to look at your notes for any other reasons (e.g., you need the external pressure to actual write the notes), feel free to give me your notes any time during the semester and I will help you with your project.

Contact: Steve or Allison Blay

Phone: (352) 381-1117

E-Mail: info@acrosstheages.org

Website: http://www.acrosstheages.org

Address: 6700 NW 10^th Pl., Gainesville, FL 32605

Contact: Elissa Bass

Phone: (352) 331-3111

E-Mail: elissa827@yahoo.com

Address: 227 S.W. 62^nd Boulevard, Gainesville, FL 32607

Contact: Jackie Floyd

Phone: (352) 331-0601

Website: www.palmgardencare.com