I already found out how to type in the © symbol into the code, I could not figure out how to do that in html or css, I just knew the keyboard strokes for it. The instructor did not show us how to do this. Oh well, that was a past exercise but I wish I knew it then.

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Copyright symbol in HTML, and other HTML characters
 

Most non-alphanumeric characters and symbols are created by using & something ;
For example:

• copyright = ©
• M-dash = —
• n-dash = –
• bullet = •
• right arrow = →
• left arrow = ←
• non-breaking space =  

You can also represent symbols with their ASCII code. & #ascii ;
For example:

• bullet = &#8226 ; (the only one I know off-hand)

W3C schools has full lists:

• http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_entities.asp
• http://www.w3schools.com/tags/ref_symbols.asp

If you're wondering why the code didn't turn into HTML on this post, it's because the forum doesn't support HTML in-post.
It's blocked for security purposes.

That's not exactly correct, forums will typically convert the text so it's represented of whatever characters you have used:

After it's parsed the ampersand is converted:

If you want to post characters you have to post them as characters:

©thecoalman 2012 :D