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Download Introductory Materials (163 KB)

Download Metacognitive Critical Reading (206 KB)

Download Reading Writing and Rhetoric in a Nutshell (149 KB)

Download Rhetorical Awareness in College Writing (193 KB)

Download MLA Formatting Basics (152 KB)

Download Themes for Reading (79 KB)

Download Common Texts: Countdown, by Beyonce (98 KB)

Download Common Texts: Danger of a Single Story, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (131 KB)

Download Common Texts: Is Burning Trash a Good Way to handle It Waste Incineration in 5 Charts, by Ana Baptista (845 KB)

Download Common Texts: How to Read Like a Writer, by Mike Bunn (185 KB)

Download Common Texts: MisInformation and Biases Infect Social Media, Both Intentionally and Accidentallyby Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia and Filippo Menczer (220 KB)

Download Common Texts: The Defense Department is Worried about Climate Change and Also a Huge Carbon Emitter, by Neta Crawford (384 KB)

Download Common Texts: Sustaining our Commonwealth of Nature and Knowledge, by Herman Daly (220 KB)

Download Common Texts: Demanding Equal Political Voice and Accepting Nothing Less, by Louis DeSipio (147 KB)

Download Common Texts: Writing in the Age of Distraction, by Cory Doctorow (136 KB)

Download Common Texts: The Elk, the Tourists, and the Missing Coal Country Jobs, by R.G. Dunlop (315 KB)

Download Common Texts: Are Batman and Superman the Barometer of our Times a Review of Superheroes in Crisis, by Ira Erika Franco (234 KB)

Download Common Texts: How I Celebrate Life on the Day of the Dead, by Linda González (191 KB)

Download Common Texts: The Declaration of Independence, by Thomas Jefferson (96 KB)

Download Common Texts: The Day Language Came Into My Life, by Helen Keller (74 KB)

Download Common Texts: How Helen Keller Learned to Talk, by Helen Keller (74 KB)

Download Common Texts: John F. Kennedy Inauguration Speech, by John F. Kennedy (74 KB)

Download Common Texts: Multiple Intelligences, by Fred Mednick (156 KB)

Download Common Texts: K-pop: What's in a Name?, by Candace Epps-Robertson and Katie Hulme (58 KB)

Download Common Texts: The School Days of an Indian Girl, by Zitkala-Sa (241 KB)

Download Common Texts: Fred Rogers testifies before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, 1969 (75 KB)

Download Common Texts: The Dude Map, by Nikhil Sonnad (76 KB)

Download Common Texts: A Feminist's Guide to Rom-Coms and How to Watch them, by Ayu Sutriasa (191 KB)

Download Common Texts: A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift (95 KB)

Download Common Texts: Two Ways of Seeing a River, by Mark Twain (92 KB)

Download Common Texts: Phyllis Wheatley (139 KB)

Download Common Texts: Why Schools are Banning Yoga, by Ali Wong (94 KB)

Download Supplemental: Student Analysis: How to Read Like a Writer (84 KB)

Download Supplemental: Student Analysis: Distractions That Come With Writing and How to Avoid Them (121 KB)

Download Supplemental: Student Analysis: Critical View of Corey Doctorow's "Writing in the Age of Distraction" (111 KB)

Download Supplemental: Student Analysis: The Strange Science of Online Toxicity (88 KB)

Download Supplemental: Student Analysis: A Rhetorical Analysis of Helen Keller’s The Day Language Came Into My Life (91 KB)

Description

The Commons: Tools for Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric gives instructors and students of college writing courses a single source for information on metacognitive critical reading, rhetorical awareness, and MLA formatting basics as well as interesting and relevant reading and viewing content. Its approach is interdisciplinary, bringing in material from ecology, sociology, psychology, technology, popular culture, political science, cultural studies, and literature. Each essay, website, video, infographic, and poem has been carefully chosen to speak to the Eastern Kentucky University community, but everyone can find something that speaks to our common human experience and our need to communicate and connect with one another.

UPDATE for 2024: Sample student analyses on some of the common texts have been added. Look for "Supplemental: Student Analysis" in the list above.

ISBN

978-1-734328-2-9

Publication Date

2022

Publisher

Encompass Digital Archive, Eastern Kentucky University

City

Richmond, KY

Subjects

critical thinking, metacognition, rhetorical awareness, reading, writing, rhetoric

Comments

Update for 2024
Sample student analyses on some of the common texts have been added. Look for "Supplemental: Student Analysis" in the list above.

Publication of this open access textbook was made possible by the EKU Alternative Textbook Grant, funded by the EKU Board of Regents, and by the support of EKU Libraries.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

The Commons: Tools for Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric

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