Course Design: I need your help! I need reading options!

I am trying something here that reflects the experimental nature of an upcoming course I am designing for my local college. I have been tasked with teaching a six-week English C1000 class, online, in an accelerated manner. All the practicalities are accounted for, regarding grammar, essay forms, and general writing guidance. That is no issue and can be repurposed from the non-expanded form of the class I have been teaching for six years.

The issue is the theme.

My courses are designed around a unifying theme for readings and the topics I have the students explore. Previous classes have dealt with punk resistance, urban planning, and monsters. This time, I want to explore the enshittification of the internet. In simplest terms, I want to theme the course around the exploration of why the internet kind of sucks right now and how corporate, profit-driven thinking has influenced that.

As such, I turn to you, dear reader, for help. I need some suggestions for texts.

What Do I need?

I am looking for essays and think pieces to use as required readings and options for responses. I am conducting my own search, of course, and have some pieces I am looking at. But I also realize that an outsider perspective can be hugely helpful.

Structurally speaking, the six-week course entails:

• A brief introduction to the internet
• Algorithms and monopolies
• Grifter culture (Manosphere and the like)
• Online betting markets
• AI and data harvesting debate
• A possible refuge in the indieweb

Those are my target topics, and I am hoping that you all may have some suggestions on readings I could assign. With that said, I have some requirements; they need to be found online easily at no expense to my students. That means if it is published on a website with limited or no paywalls, that is perfect. If they can be found on a database, that’s great. I can check whether my college has access to them, and if not, I can request it.

They should be general enough to understand for college students, but I do appreciate pushing them as well. My criteria for “general” is that work is written toward a college-educated audience that is not entirely versed in specific disciplines like computer sciences or sociology, but can understand the key concepts through the essay itself.

They do not need to be limited to text form; video essays and podcasts are viable options. I teach that these are forms of writing with strengths and weaknesses.

They cannot be books. I’ll explain why…

Why No Books?

Long story short, I only have six weeks, and I get enough complaints about my text selections in general. Believe me, I would happily assign a book or two otherwise, but I’ve noticed my recent incoming students have had challenges reading things (there is a whole lot of commentary I want to make here, but will not for the scope of this post).

It is easier to assign weekly readings to deal with topics than to try to work through a single book these days. It is also harder to find a book that covers everything I would like to cover.

Also worth noting is that they will be working on a podcast as a final project so a book might eat up a lot of time that could be spent on the podcasting angle.

So, Thoughts?

So, that’s it really. I am already going through some potential readings, but I am eager to see what you might suggest. You can even pitch something you wrote as well if you’re so inclined. I am hoping to get some suggestions over the week to finalize the reading selections while I spend my time building the course shell.

That then leaves me a week after to read, analyze, and critique the readings for use in the lectures.

So, what do you have? You can comment here with your suggestions, or on the social post that brought you here. I really appreciate the help. Thank you!