Calendar
Our course calendar is organized by week.
Week 12: November 3–9, 2025
Readings and tasks due by Sunday, November 9, 2025 at 11:59 pm
To read:
- Michael J. Metts and Andy Welfle, A List Apart, Standards for Writing Accessibly
- Will Fanguy, XD Ideas, Improving Website Scannability for UX Design Success
- Kate Moran, How People Read Online: New and Old Findings
- Optional: Reading through style guides and web documentation is one way to build your digital writing skills. With that in mind, here are some that I recommend reading, if you're interested in really getting into the nitty gritty details of writing for the web:
- Mozilla Developer Network, Writing style guide
- Google, Developer documentation style guide (especially the Language and grammar and Punctuation sections
To do:
- Complete the website analysis project and upload to Brightspace
To earn participation points this week:
- Post a reading response in the #readings channel on Slack by sharing, in one or two brief sentences, something you learned from this week's readings
Week 11: October 27–November 2, 2025
Readings and tasks due by Sunday, November 2, 2025, at 11:59 pm
To read:
- Matt Barton, James Kalmbach, and Charles Lowe, Writing Spaces: Web Writing Style Guide, p. 42–58 ("You Can't Write for the Web without Working with Visuals" to "How Can I Use Images and Create Remixes and Mashups If I Can't Copy from the Web?")
- Kristi Kellogg, Search Engine Journal, The Essential Guide to Using Images Legally Online
- Matthew Butterick, Practical Typography, What Is Good Typography? and Who Is Typography For?
- Richard Rutter, A List Apart, Web Typography: Designing Tables to Be Read, Not Looked At
To do:
- Complete the small research website assignment and upload to Brightspace
To earn participation points this week:
- Post a reading response in the #readings channel on Slack by sharing, in one or two brief sentences, something you learned from this week's readings
Week 10: October 20–26, 2025
Readings and tasks due by Sunday, October 26, 2025 at 11:59 pm
To read:
- Matt Barton, James Kalmbach, and Charles Lowe, Writing Spaces: Web Writing Style Guide, p. 25–37 ("The Rhetorics of the Web" to "Don't Forget about Your Other Audience: The Search Engine")
- Senongo Akpem, A List Apart, Building Nonlinear Narratives for the Web
- Mark Bernstein, A List Apart, 10 Tips on Writing the Living Web
To do:
- Complete the small research website annotated bibliography and upload to Brightspace
To earn participation points this week:
- Post a reading response in the #readings channel on Slack by sharing, in one or two brief sentences, something you learned from this week's readings
Looking ahead:
- Small research website assignment due Sunday, November 2, 2025, at 11:59 pm
Week 9: October 13–19, 2025
Readings and tasks due by Sunday, October 19, 2025 at 11:59 pm
To read:
- Matt Barton, James Kalmbach, and Charles Lowe, Writing Spaces: Web Writing Style Guide, “Introduction,” p. 2–4
- Aaron Gustafson, Adaptive Web Design: Crafting Rich Experiences with Progressive Enhancement, Chapter 1: Think of the User, Not the Browser
- Hoa Loranger, Plain Language Is for Everyone, Even Experts
- Plain Language Action and Information Network, Checklist for Plain Language on the Web
To do:
- Complete the small research website proposal and upload to Brightspace
- Join the #readings Slack channel
To earn participation points this week:
- Post a reading response in the #readings channel on Slack by sharing, in one or two brief sentences, something you learned from this week's readings
Week 8: October 6–12, 2025 (Midterm)
Assignment due by Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 11:59 pm
To do:
- Complete the web résumé assignment and upload to Brightspace
To earn participation points this week:
- Another easy week because I know many of you are nervous about your first independent web project! Just post something in the course Slack. Please label the post with "Week 8" so I don't get it confused with your Week 7 post. P.S. If you posted a photo of your pet last week and are thinking, "People probably don't want to see another photo of my pet," please know that you are wrong. We'd love to see another photo of your pet.
Week 7: September 29–October 5, 2025
Readings and tasks due by Sunday, October 5, 2025 at 11:59 pm
To read:
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 11 (p. 471)
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 12 (p. 545)
To do:
- Complete Chapter 11 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
- Complete Chapter 12 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
To earn participation points this week:
- Chapters 11 and 12 are the trickiest in the book, so participation points are easy this week: Just post something in the course Slack. It can be a photo of your pet, a music recommendation, how excited you are for Halloween, or a question about an assignment. Anything!
To earn extra credit (completely optional; due Sunday, December 7, 2025 at 11:59 pm):
- Complete Chapter 13 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
- Complete Chapter 14 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
- Complete Chapter 15 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
Looking ahead:
- Web résumé assignment due Sunday, October 12, 2025 at 11:59 pm
Week 6: September 22–28, 2025
Readings and tasks due by Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 11:59 pm
To read:
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 9 (p. 361)
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 10 (p. 413)
To do:
- Complete Chapter 9 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
- Complete Chapter 10 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
To earn participation points this week:
- What is something you've noticed in the world now that you've started to learn how to code? Have you gotten frustrated by slow websites, but realized why the text shows up as Times New Roman? Do you look at websites differently?
- Alternative option, because I know the above is a trickier one than usual: The Lounge files are all about drinks. What would you add to the website's menu? (My choice would be a London Fog.)
Week 5: September 15–21, 2025
Readings and tasks due by Sunday, September 21, 2025 at 11:59 pm
To read:
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 7 (p. 255)
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 8 (p. 311)
To do:
- Complete Chapter 7 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
- Complete Chapter 8 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
To earn participation points this week:
- We're finally getting into CSS this week. To set the tone, please share a website you think has good design! Something pretty, something functional, or something that speaks to you. Share the URL on Slack with a brief note about why you like it.
Week 4: September 8–14, 2025
Readings and tasks due by Sunday, September 14, 2025 at 11:59 pm
To read:
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 5 (p. 163)
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 6 (p. 219)
To do:
- Complete Chapter 5 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
- Complete Chapter 6 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
To earn participation points this week:
- This week, please share a tip with your classmates! What's something you've learned so far that makes your coding life easier? Do you type both open and close tags before writing text? Do you check your pages in different browsers? (If you don't have a tip, that's okay. Just share something new you've learned that surprised you.)
Week 3: September 1–7, 2025
Readings and tasks due Sunday, September 8, 2024 at 11:59 pm
To read:
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 3 (p. 77)
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 4 (p. 123)
To do:
- Complete Chapter 3 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
- Complete Chapter 4 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
Note: Read the instructions for the Chapter 4 textbook exercises carefully. You won't be doing everything in this chapter.
To earn participation points this week:
- It's an easy one, this week—simply share on Slack something you would like to touch on this semester. SEO? Digital marketing? Social media? I'm creating a list of research topics for a later assignment and would love to hear what you all want to learn about.
Week 2: August 25–August 31, 2025
Readings and tasks due Sunday, August 31, 2025 at 11:59 pm CST.
To read:
- Getting started with Head First HTML and CSS
- Head First HTML and CSS, Intro (p. xxv)
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 1 (p. 1)
- Head First HTML and CSS, Chapter 2 (p. 43)
To do:
- Complete Chapter 1 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
- Complete Chapter 2 textbook exercises and upload to Brightspace
To earn participation points this week:
- After you finish Chapter 1, share what it was like to see the code you wrote become a webpage. Was it the first time you tried something like this? What surprised you? Was it easier than you thought? Post a (very brief) review on Slack.
Note: These textbook exercises are intended for beginners, but it can be easy to get confused. Read carefully, and if you have any questions, contact me. We can walk through things together.
Week 1: August 18–24, 2025
Readings and tasks due Sunday, August 24, 2025 at 11:59 pm CST.
To read:
Note: Don't get overwhelmed by the tech talk if it's all new to you. We're going to go over these concepts in more detail together. We're just getting started!
To do:
- Sign up for our Slack workspace and post your Slack introduction
- Download the plain-text editor of your choice (or use the pre-installed program on your computer, i.e., Notepad for Windows or TextEdit for Mac)
- Complete the technology assessment and upload to Brightspace
- Get a copy of the course textbook (paper or ebook is fine; there are lots of cheap copies available if you prefer a physical copy)
To earn participation points this week:
- Post a screenshot of your file organization system for the course in the #assignments channel on Slack