Sugarman’s activity asks you to map out (draw) your lifeline so that you can identify the
peaks (highs) and troughs (lows) that you have experienced over your life. This visual
representation helps you to take note of the significant moments in your life. Do not include
graph in your paper. It is only for you to reflect on the following prompts:
• What is its general shape? Does it continue to rise throughout life?
• Does it depict peaks and troughs around some arbitrary mean? Alternatively, is there a
plateau and subsequent fall in the level of the curve? Is it punctuated with major or
only relatively minor peaks and troughs?
• The horizontal axis represents time; but how about the vertical axis—what Life-span
development dimension does that reflect?
• What (or who) triggered the peaks and troughs in the graph? Why did they occur at
the time that they did?
• What might have been done (or was done) to make the peaks higher and the troughs
shallower?
• How might the incidence and height of the peaks be increased in the future? And the
incidence and depth of the troughs decreased?
• What positive results emerged from the troughs and what were the negative
consequences of the peaks?
Once you have spent time considering the shape and reflections prompts, write your
reflective paper based on what you learned from the article and by completing the activity.
Do not format your paper in a question-and-answer approach (solely answering the
prompts). Instead, your paper should be written as a reflective paper based on the insight
from the article and experience of mapping out your lifeline acknowledging your peaks and
troughs.
Follow APA writing standards and formatting guidelines which includes a title and
reference page (these two pages do not count toward your required page count). Your
reference page should include the Sugarman article since you will likely cite this source
within your paper. Minimum length 3-FULL pages double-spaced with 12-point Times New
Roman font with 1-inch margins.