Scholarly writing involves building on others’ work. Often, the success of a piece of writing hinges on the depth of students’ engagement with sources. To help students develop critical reading skills–and make sure they do the reading!–we may ask them to post questions and comments about assigned readings to a discussion forum, in lieu of or in preparation for in-class discussion. This lesson plan, developed by UWP Lecturer Rebecca Wilbanks for Katherine Henry’s Applications of Biological Concepts in Public Health (with associated PowerPoint slides and handout), is meant to help students formulate more thoughtful, probing, and critical questions and reading responses. 

Bonus activity for in-person discussions

The moves we make in a discussion seminar as we respond to colleagues—agreeing, extending, disagreeing, and making connections between others’ remarks—are the same moves that we make in scholarly writing. This modeling exercise from UWP Senior Lecturer Aliza Watters asks students to model different moves during an in-person discussion.