The Rhetoric of Everyday Texts — Online Course Rotating Header Image

Course Readings

There is no required text to purchase for the course. I provide all of the reading weeks 1-5, then we integrate your research readings during weeks 6-10:

David Levy, “Meditation on a Receipt” from Scrolling Forward : Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age. (PDF)

Diana George, “The Word On the Street: Public Discourse in a Culture of Disconnect.” (PDF)

Glenn Stillar, Analyzing Everyday Texts, Chapter One (PDF)

  • Resources of discourse analysis
  • Resources of  rhetorical theory
  • Resources of social theory

Sue Walker, Typography and Language In Everyday Life, Chapter Four — “Prescription and Practice for Non-Experts.” (PDF)

  • Rules for visual organization of public writing
  • The extent to which rules are followed in non-expert typography
  • Letter-writing practice

Kathryn Schluz, Final Forms: What Death Certificates Can Tell Us, and What They Can’t.

Fleming, David. “Subjects of the Inner City: Writing the People of Cabrini-Green.” Towards a Rhetoric of Everyday Life, ed. Martin Nystrand and John Duffy. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003. (PDF)