The outline for the first module in An Introduction to Digital Humanities, a course I taught annually at the College of Wooster between 2017 and 2022. The assignments use HTML as a gateway to markup in general and encoded text. We discuss how machines “read” what we have encoded and how programs, like MS Word, introduce layers of abstraction, for better and worse. Students produce wireframes based on HTML templates that they have chosen to “hack” to create their portfolio website for the semester. Students also register for hosted space (on Reclaim hosting) and we explore the infrastructure of the Internet and the other metaphors — e.g. “cloud” hosting — that but layers of abstraction between us and our technologies.