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Pencils-
!!! Pencils are the most common drawing tools we have these days. In art class you use them all the time. Hell you use them to write, do tests, fill out forms, etc.
NOT ALL PENCILS ARE EQUAL though.
Now first off the bat let me tell you there is an alternative for regular pencils if you don't like the feel of them: lead sticks and lead holders. Which last far longer than a normal pencil (you work with straight lead, it's like a larger mechanical pencil that uses straight up pencil lead), but they are considerably more expensive. Depending on where you get a lead holder they can be anywhere from 6-15 dollars. Lead packets (Prismacolor Turquoise brand recommended) cost around 6-10 dollars for 12 sticks. I do however, strongly recommend these if you prefer the feel of a mechanical pencil but want the effect of a normal pencil.

Now to the lead itself:
You have three basic kinds: B, which are soft, HB, the standard in the middle lead, and H, which is hard.
B, is shading's best friend in the entire world.
~6B is the ultimate pencil for getting black or near black. You can get deep thick blacks with little effort compared to a 2B or HB. Note that this is also probably the most messy of leads.
~4B good for shading over all. If you are for some reason smudging (don't smudge, it looks cheap and amateurish) this pencil can work out but you can get nice continuous tones with it, just switch to a 2B once you want a lighter value.
~2B is a good standard pencil, the lines are easy to erase, it's not too soft and it doesn't ge everywhere but you can still play around with it easily. If you're sketching, they're good, but you might want to use an HB over it.

~HB Good all around sketching and line pen. You can do basic shading with it, but it's best for sketches if you move your hand around a lot. Sort of a boring lead.

~H is probably going to be the less used kind out of all of them, the lines are hard to erase and it's mainly used in design work and architecture.


Inks-
!!! Now when I say Inks, I mean two things: Pens and Inks themselves. Now the two act very different, depending on what kind you're moving, but in the end, a pen uses ink.
Pens are great for all sorts of things. If you want a continuous tone in your line work you should stick with a Micron Pen. There are other brands of pens that are just as good like Staedler, but Micron is basically the ultra-tear that most art teachers fell in love with a while ago. These are the sorts of pens that range in size from: .001-1.0.
For detail work


Markers

Post 4, for a different kind of thing.

Post 6.

Just in case.