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Preliminary Exam Reading Lists

All students take the written examinations on Rhetorical Theory and History, and their Specialty Area. Then they choose either Technical Communication and Culture or Writing Studies and Pedagogy.  The reading list for the Specialty Area includes twenty-five items that the student, committee members, and advisor agree upon; the other three have fifteen fixed items that are complemented with ten that are agreed upon.

Rhetoric Theory and History Reading List

(Spring 2012)

1.  Gorgias, “Encomium of Helen” (Kennedy translation recommended)

2.  Isocrates,Against the Sophists

3.  Isocrates,Antidosi

4.  Plato,Gorgias

5.  Plato,Phaedru

6.  Aristotle,On Rhetoric (Kennedy translation recommended)

7.  Cicero,De Oratore

8.  Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria. Selections from books 2, 6, 10, 11, and 12.

9.  Andrea Lunsford, ed.Reclaiming Rhetorica : Women in the Rhetorical Tradition. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995.

10.  Kenneth Burke,On Symbols and Society. Joseph R. Gusfield, Ed. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1989

11.  Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca  The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation (excerpted) and Chaim Perelman, "The New Rhetoric: A Theory of PracticalReasoning," both as included in Bizzell & Herzberg, The Rhetorical Tradition

12. Michel Foucault Selections from The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Order of Discourse as included in Bizzell & Herzberg, The Rhetorical Tradition.

13.The “Rhetorical Situation” Debates:a) Lloyd Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation”; b)Richard E. Vatz, “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation,”; c) Scott Consigny, “Rhetoric and Its Situations”.

14. Carolyn Miller. "Genre as Social Action."Quarterly Journal of Speech70 (1984): 151-176.

15. Richard Graff and Michael Leff. “Revisionist Historiography and Rhetorical Tradition(s).”

16 through 25 to be determined through negotiation by the advisor, committee, and the student

Technical Communication and Culture Reading List

(Spring 2012)

1.  from Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber, Eds., Central Works in Technical Communication, Oxford University Press, 2004.  At least the following:

a) Carolyn R. Miller, “A Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing.”

b) Robert J. Connors, “The Rise of Technical Writing Instruction in America.”

c) Steven B. Katz, “The Ethic of Expediency: Classical Rhetoric, Technology, and the Holocaust.”

2. Carolyn Rude, “Mapping the Research Questions in Technical Communication,” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 23.2 (2009); 174-201

3. from Mary Lay and Laura Gurak.  Research in Technical Communication.  Grerenwood, 2002. At least three selections to be negotiated with advisor.

4. Carol Berkenkotter and Thomas N. Huckin, Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995.

5. Bernadette Longo, Spurious Coin. State University of New York Press, 2000.

6. Michael Salvo, “Ethics of Engagement: User-Centered Design and Rhetorical Methodology,” Technical Communication Quarterly 10.3 (2001): 273-290.

7. from Rachel Spilka, Ed., Digital Literacy for Technical Communication: 21st Century Theory and Practice.  Routledge, 2009.  At least three selections to be negotiated with advisor.

8. Stuart Selber, Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. NCTE Studies in Writing and Rhetoric, 2004.

9. Laura Gurak, Cyberliteracy:  Navigating the Internet with Awareness. Yale University Press, 2002.

10. Gunther Kress, Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach. Taylor and Francis, 2010.

11.  Anne Wysocki, Johndan Johnson-Eilola, Cynthia Selfe, Geoffrey Sirc.  Writing New Media.  Utah State University Press, 2004.

12. from Jack Selzer and Sharon Crowley, Eds., Rhetorical Bodies, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999.

a) Carole Blair, “Contemporary U.S. Memorial Sites and Exemplars of Rhetoric’s Materiality”

b) Barbara Dickson, “Reading Maternity Materially: The Case of Demi Moore.”

c) Christina Haas, “Materializing Public and Private: The Spatialization of Conceptual Categories in Discourses of Abortion.”

13. Carolyn Miller and Dawn Shepherd, “ “Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog,”in Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs, ed. Laura Gurak, Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff, and Jessica Reyman. University of Minnesota Libraries, 2004.

14. Carol Berkenkotter, Patient Tales: Case Histories and the Uses of Narratives in Psychiatry, University of South Carolina Press, 2008.

OR

Mary Lay Schuster and Amy D. Propen, Victim Advocacy in the Courtroom: Persuasive Practices in Domestic Violence and Child Protection Cases. Northeastern Series on Gender, Crime, and Law, 2011.

15. Christina Haas and Stephen Witte. “Writing as embodied practice: The case of engineering standards.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 15.4 (October, 2001): 413-457.

16 through 25 to be determined through negotiation by the advisor, committee, and the student

Writing Studies and Pedagogy Reading List

  • Bawarshi, A.S. and Reiff, M.J. (2010) Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy, Parlor Press.
  • Berlin, J.A. (1988). Rhetoric and ideology in the writing class. College English (50) 5, 477-494.
  • Bolter, J. D.  (1991).  Writing space:  The computer, hypertext, and the history of writing. Hillsdale, NJ: : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates..
  • Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M.  (2000). Multi-literacies:  Literacy learning and the design of social futures.   London:  Routledge.
  • Fox, T, (1999). Defending access: A critique of standards in higher education. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Heinemann.
  • Giroux, H. A. (2001) Theory and resistance in education: Toward a pedagogy for the opposition. Revised and expanded edition. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.
  • Gore, J. M. (1993). The struggle for pedagogies: Critical and feminist discourses as regimes of truth. New York, Routledge.
  • Graff, H. (1991).  The literacy myth:  Cultural integration and social structure in the Nineteenth Century.  New Brunswick, NJ:  Transaction Publishers.
  • Haas, C. (1996).   Writing technology:  Studies on the materiality of literacy.  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
  • Hillocks, G. (1986). Research on written composition: New directions for teaching. Urbana, IL: National Conference on Research in English and Educational Resources Information Center.
  • Levy, C. and Ransdell, eds. (1996). The science of writing: Theories, methods, individual differences, and applications. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
  • Neel, J. (1988). Plato, Derrida, and writing.  Carbondale:  SIU Press.
  • Richardson, E. (2003). African American literacies. London:  Routledge.
  • Scribner, S. & Cole, M. (1981).  The psychology of literacy.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press.
  • Witte, S. (1992).Context, text, intertext:  Toward a constructivist semiotic of writing.  Written Communication 9, 237-308.

16 through 25 to be determined through negotiation by the advisor, committee, and the student

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