Is a Pyramid "model" also a Pyramid "resource"?
I'm having trouble understanding whether I should be making models resources (by adding the acl attribute directly in the model class) or creating a separate resource class

The answer depends on what level of coupling you want to have. For a simple app, I would recommend making models resources just for simplicity sake. But for a complex app with a high level of cohesion and low level of coupling it would be better to have models separated from resources.
I'm currently in the process of learning how to use the Python Pyramid web framework, and have found the documentation to be quite excellent.
I have, however, hit a stumbling block when it comes to distinguishing the idea of a "model" (i.e. a class defined under SQLAlchemy's declarative system) from the idea of a "resource" (i.e. a means of defining access control lists on views for use with Pyramid's auth system).
I understand the above statements seem to show that I already understand the difference, but I'm having trouble understanding whether I should be making models resources (by adding the __acl__ attribute directly in the model class) or creating a separate resource class (which has the proper __parent__ and __name__ attributes) which represents the access to a view which uses the model.
Any guidance is appreciated.