WRD360: Word on the Street: The Rhetoric of Everyday Texts Rotating Header Image

Course Texts & Materials

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 (handout)

  • 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 SchluzFinal Forms: What Death Certificates Can Tell Us, and What They Can’t.

Arthur D. Little International, Inc.  for Philip Morris CR“Public Finance Balance of Smoking in the Czech Republic.” (PDF)

Adam LevinThe Selfie in the Age of Digital Recursion

Background readings:

Robin Kinross, “The Rhetoric of Neutrality”

George, Diana. “Changing the Face of Poverty: Representations of Poverty in Nonprofit Appeals,” ed. John Trimbur, Popular Literacy, Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh UP (2001). pp. 209-228.

Dominick’s on Sheffield and Fullerton, Halloween, 2013