Fall 2025 SOWK 581 Class 12 Weekly Email

MyHeritage Syllabus Presentations Emails

Unit Introduction and What You Will Learn

Week 12 is asynchronous. You will engage in content regarding narrative therapy. Students will read about narrative therapy and take a quiz on Cooper and Granucci Lesser’s (2022) chapter on the topic. The forums this week include questions reflecting on the textbook content and case studies, an opportunity to experiment with a narrative approach, a creative project to create a visual narrative, examples of therapeutic documents, and continued exploration of the DSM and diagnosis.

Learning Objectives for this week include

• Explore therapeutic documents in narrative therapy
• Engage with some of the techniques and interventions used in narrative therapy

Unit Assignments

Content

• Read Cooper and Granucci Lesser (2022) Chapter 10 - Narrative Therapy
• Explore other content shared in the forums

W-12 A-01: Asynchronous Participation and Engagement

The expectation is that each of your replies will be substantive and provide meaningful perspectives, contributing to the forum’s conversation and scholarship. They can be related to the prompts or building on conversations shared by peers. There are five forums for this week, and you are expected to make at least 6 replies across any of the forums. These forums include the following:

• The chapter ten reflection questions forum explores the readings and asks you to consider narrative therapy related to the examples and case studies discussed in the textbook.
• I ask you to test the waters using a narrative approach by reflecting on the use of some of the questions and techniques described in the textbook in a conversation with family or a loved one.
• The forum Create a Tree of Life your experience or an example of a creative project sharing a narrative about you a space to share a tree of life that you develop for yourself developing a story for your origin, daily activities, skills, future desires, important people, and gifts.
• Narrative therapy often employs therapeutic documents, and there is a forum with some examples of these documents and encouraging to reflect on the self-creation of one.
• There is a lot of information we might need to know from the DSM, the forum DSM-5-TR Diagnosis Information Sharing asks students to share information about one diagnosis and potentially make a fact sheet about it.

Reading Quizzes

You have a reading quiz, W-12 Reading Quiz for Cooper and Granucci Lesser (2022) Chapter 10 which is due by Saturday 11/15, 8:00 AM.

Unit Resources

You can listen to a podcast episode for this week’s reading Chapter 10: Narrative Therapy, or see the entire series Podcast Series.

Two forums have you engage with therapeutic documents. In the forum for developing a tree of life, I share several resources related to this that would be helpful to examine. Ncube (2006) provides this a potential intervention, discussing its development, implementation, and results. He is connected with the Dulwich Center, and they have a page with many good examples and information related to Tree of Life as a narrative activity. Weller (n.d.) shares their experience of having put together one as well.

Reference

Cooper, M. G., & Granucci Lesser, J. (2022). Clinical social work practice: An integrated approach (6th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.

Ncube, N. (2006). The tree of life project using narrative ideas in work with vulnerable children in Southern Africa. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work, (1), 3-16.

Weller, N. B. (n.d.) The tree of life: A simple exercise for reclaiming your identity and direction in life through story. https://nathanbweller.com/tree-life-simple-exercise-reclaiming-identity-direction-life-story/

To-Do List

• Keep your head up
• Read chapter 10 and do the reading quiz
• Complete six replies across any of the five forums