Taking Notes in English Class: A Student Guide
How to take notes from the board, from discussion, and from reading, including the Cornell method and a claim-evidence-question chart, and how to turn notes into an essay.
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Free Guides
Every free PDF on this site, gathered on one page: 28 guides, handouts, and studies for student writers, teachers, and readers. Open any of them and download it—no account and no sign-up.
For Student Writers
Handbooks and References
Core references for any English or writing class, from note-taking to the vocabulary of craft.
A Glossary of Literary and Writing Terms
Nearly two hundred terms in plain language, from allegory to zeugma: the vocabulary of fiction, poetry, drama, the essay, literary history, and the writer’s trade.
Download the PDFA Glossary of Poetic Terms
A student reference for the poetry unit, defining each term briefly and illustrating it, wherever possible, with a line from Bishop, Frost, Williams, or Oliver.
Download the PDFBefore You Send Your Pages
Submitting and Publishing
What to send, where to send it, and how to prepare work for editors.
Poetry Submission Guidelines
A handbook for the poet preparing to send work out: curated markets, how to assemble a submission packet, industry databases, and a glossary of literary and publishing terms.
Download the PDFThe Literary Fantasy Novel
Market, length, craft, and plotting for the literary fantasy novel, with a table of novel lengths across the major genres, a model query letter with annotations, and a final readiness checklist.
Download the PDFSending It Out
A submission guide for nonfiction writers: how to revise one essay on your own, check its ethics, choose venues, and send it to magazines and journals.
Download the PDFWhere to Submit Each Course Essay
A venue chart for every essay in the nonfiction course, with what to change for each venue, how to submit, and sample letters.
Download the PDFFiction, Poetry & Memoir
The Art of Telling: Session Handouts
Student handouts from the ten-session creative-writing course. Each gathers a session’s main points, readings, in-class practice, discussion questions, homework, and a worksheet.
Select a handout to open it as a PDF.
- Opening: What Is a Story?—
- The Seven Questions Every Story Must Answer—
- Scene and Summary: When to Slow Down, When to Move—
- Character and Desire: What Pulls a Story Forward—
- Image and the Poetic Line—
- Voice and the Lyric I—
- Compression: How a Poem Holds a Whole World—
- Memory and the Memoir Impulse—
- The Double Structure: What Happened, What It Means—
- Revision: How Writers Actually Re-See—
Writing Nonfiction
Under One Roof: Nonfiction Course Guides
Student guides from the in-person nonfiction course on writing about a building and the people in it.
Syllabus and Textbook Guide
The shape of a twelve-session nonfiction course: four units, the session-by-session plan, the textbook, and the principles for writing about neighbors.
Download the PDFThe Lives Within the Walls
A reading companion on writing the life of a building: eight nonfiction books, one short-form companion, and nine adaptable narrative blueprints.
Download the PDFInterview Consent and Release Form
A plain-language form for anyone who agrees to be interviewed, quoted, or written about, recording exactly what each person permits.
Download the PDFFor Readers and Teachers
Studies and Reading Companions
Typeset studies of the fiction and poetry, with companions for classrooms and reading groups.
The Poetry of James Mulhern: A Slim Companion
A two-page handout naming six recurring features of the work, from plain diction to elegy without theatrics, for quick classroom use.
Download the PDFEssays—Criticism & Craft: Book Club Companion
Discussion questions and a critical essay on five readings, with a reading map of the full essay archive.
Download the PDFAltogether Beautiful: A Study of “Assumptions”
The story read against the dogma of the Assumption—a model of close, doctrinally literate literary interpretation.
Download the PDFThe Remembering Voice
Narrative style in the short fiction: the child’s sensory filter, the adult consciousness that shapes it, and the mechanics of dialogue.
Download the PDFCredo: A Statement of Belief
The artistic creed—writing from mercy rather than judgment, each story a small act of faith.
Download the PDFAll We Ever Needed: The Architecture of Mercy
A study of the short-story collection—mercy as its governing ethic, carried by gesture rather than argued onto the page.
Download the PDFThe Religious Architecture of the Work
The full concordance of religious allusion across the fiction and poetry—the recurring images, prayers, and readings in one place.
Download the PDFThe Hopper Suite: An Index of Painterly Images
All one hundred and thirty-nine paintings that accompany this site, arranged in seven chapters, each with its note and the pages where it hangs.
Download the PDFAlso Available
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