[Air-L] Coursebook for visual rhetoric

[Daniel Jung]

Hi

I will be teaching a new web design course (second year, successor 
course) at my university next spring, and I am looking for course 
material. The course is both practical (individual coding assignments 
and group projects, using PHP/mysql) and theoretical (how to detect and 
apply visual rhetorics on the web, namely in dynamically generated 
sites). I am excited about it.

I have found and browsed Carolyn Handa's "Visual Rhetoric in a Digital 
World", which looks promising in its diversity and level. Does any of 
you have experience with this source book in class? Also, it is ten 
years old. Although the classics in there never go out of style, it 
could be nice to have some fresher ideas as well, and especially ones 
which really use the "digital world" as we know it today, and not from 
the turn of the century. Any suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

For example, I have read Applen's new book "Writing for the Web", which 
is an attempt to combine the practical coding and the rhetorical 
implications of publishing on the web. I am not convinced of this 
combination in this book though, and I found many flaws in it. The 
Introduction and the first part of the Rhetorics chapter are ok, so I am 
using these parts in the first year course.

Thank you very much,
- Daniel Jung