The guidelines presented here were developed in a seminar aimed at M.A. and advanced B.A. students. They are based on narratological theories by Marie-Laure Ryan, Gérard Genette, William Nelles, Ansgar Nünning, John Pier, and Viveca Füredy. Our contribution focuses on how collaborative annotation tasks can be used in university seminars, especially in the context of teaching students how to critically assess and compare theoretical frameworks and definitions. We also highlight the students’ impression that developing and using annotating guidelines improved their close-reading skills and that the task sensitised them to some of the core challenges of distant reading (e.g. questions of ambiguity and interpretation).