Module 8 Assignment
Interview with an Older Adult
This exercise has been adapted from the lesson
“Participation in Government: Interview of an Older
Adult” from Lesson Plans on Aging Issues: Creative Ways to
Meet Social Studies Standards produced by
the Ithaca College Gerontology Institute.
General Instructions
Using the questions below, you will conduct an interview
with a person at least 60 years of age. Feel free
to add questions of your own whenever one occurs to you. Be
sure to review the Historical Context
section on the following pages before beginning the
interview. The complete project will include your
questions and the interviewee’s answers (i.e., transcript of
the interview) as well as the three Reaction
paragraphs described below.
Report Criteria
1. Typed and double-spaced.
2. Include the interview questions in your report in a
format that enables the reader to know what the
person you are interviewing is referring to.
3. Discuss your personal reaction to the interview in three
paragraphs at the end of your report (see
final section below).
Interview Questions
1. Please tell me about your childhood, family and school
life.
2. Do you consider yourself old? At what ages (or stages)
did you notice that you were getting
older?
3. What is the most important historical event or period of
time that you have lived through?
4. How did it influence you personally?
5. What is the biggest change you have seen in how people
conduct their everyday lives?
6. What have been the best years of your life so far? What
are your plans for the future?
7. How are young people today different from when you were
their age?
8. What advice would you give young people to help them
prepare for their old age?
9. Have you ever experienced any negative attitudes or
discrimination because of your age? Please
explain.
10. Student question. Based on what you’ve learned, ask at
least one more question; what else
would you like to know about this person’s life?
Reaction
In three paragraphs, discuss your reaction to the interview:
1. What did you learn? Did anything surprise you?
2. How did you feel during the interview?
3. What changes (if any) have occurred in your perception of
older adults? (What did you think
before? What do you think now?)
Submission
Submit the final interview report to the Dropbox and
Turnitin.com no later than Sunday 11:59 PM
EST/EDT.
Historical Context
Before beginning the interview, you should familiarize
yourself with national events, trends, and U.S.
presidents from the 20th century to the present day that are
outlined on the following pages.
Important Events:
1900-1920
Development of big business
Development of transportation
Panama Canal
Airplane invented
One room schools
First automobiles
World War I in Europe
U.S. entry into World War I
Flu epidemic
Armistice Day
1920-1930
Women vote
Prohibition
Flappers
Progressive era
Stock Market crash
1930-1940
Great Depression
New Deal
Radio popular
1940-1950
Pearl Harbor
Draft and World War II
Atomic bomb
V-E Day and V-J Day
Cold war and anti-communism
1950-1960
Sputnik
Fear of nuclear war
TV becomes common appliance
Elvis Presley popular
1960-1970
Vietnam
Civil rights
Great Society programs
John F. Kennedy assassinated
Martin Luther King assassinated
Neil Armstrong, first man on moon (Apollo missions)
Beatles popular
1970-1980
Arab oil embargo
Inflation
Gas Shortage
Drug use more widespread
Computers become more common
Watergate
Richard M. Nixon resigns as president
1980-1990
John Lennon shot and killed
Bell telephone system divided into smaller companies
Sally Ride, first female astronaut
Space shuttle Challenger explodes
AIDS virus
Ruptured Exxon tanker spills oil
Texas elects first woman Governor since Reconstruction
1990-2000
Nelson Mandela, apartheid ends in South Africa
Persian Gulf crisis
East and West Germany reunited-Berlin Wall taken down
Soviet Union dissolved
First wave of “baby boomers” turns 50
2001-2003
Collapse of the World Trade Center in New York City
War with Iraq
2004-2006
Hurricane Katrina
2007-2010
Barack Obama, first African-American elected as President
Breakout of H1N1
Earthquake in Haiti
U.S. Presidents from 1897-present
1897-1901 William McKinley
1901-1909 Theodore Roosevelt
1909-1913 William H. Taft
1913-1921 Woodrow Wilson
1921-1923 Warren Harding
1923-1929 Calvin Coolidge
1929-1933 Herbert Hoover
1933-1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt
1945-1953 Harry Truman
1953-1961 Dwight D. Eisenhower
1961-1963 John F. Kennedy
1963-1969 Lyndon B. Johnson
1969-1974 Richard M. Nixon
1974-1977 Gerald Ford
1977-1981 Jimmy Carter
1981-1989 Ronald Reagan
1989-1992 George Bush
1992-1900 Bill Clinton
2001-1908 George W. Bush
2009- Barack Obama
