Methodology

This course consists of three writing assignments.  A draft of any paper may be submitted to the instructor’s email address before final submission.  The instructor will then grade and comment on the paper and allow an opportunity for rewriting before final submission (the maximum grade for a resubmitted paper is 95%).  All final papers should be submitted through the GMU classroom page as PDF documents (please notify the instructor when they are submitted).  Although students are welcome to cite other sources, for most assignments, a thorough reading of the assigned texts will generally provide sufficient information to produce A-level work, and it is expected that the assigned texts will be cited extensively (the exception to this is in discussing spiritual autobiography and rule of life, when students are expected to conduct independent research). 

Students must understand that proficiency in chaplaincy is largely based in experiential learning, so there is only so much that can be learned from the texts assigned for this course or from any other written texts.  Indeed, Anton Boisen (1936), “the father of CPE,” maintains that chaplains can really only learn from the “living documents” to whom they provide care.  Because the experience of every chaplain is different, any texts will reflect only the experiences of the writers, those they have consulted, and those from whom they have learned. Thus, the texts chosen for this course will not explain everything there is to know about chaplaincy.  They are simply sufficient to give you an understanding of chaplaincy as experienced by the authors.

All papers are to be written in APA format, using the most recent APA edition, student paper style.  Papers should include a title page and a reference list, and should also be properly formatted with appropriate font, margins, headers and internal citations (texts should generally be cited when relied upon for content even if not quoted directly).  This is not an arbitrary formatting requirement.  Rather, it is an actual element of this course because most of the bodies who certify chaplains require the submission and defense of an extensive theory paper, and APA is the generally recognized style for this kind of work, so learning to use it is important. 

With respect to the assignments set forth below, the number of pages identified applies to the body of the paper.  It does not include the title page or reference page.  Some assignments require a degree of critical thinking.  Please know that, when asked to give an opinion, there is generally no right or wrong answer, provided you can reasonably justify your response.