In the humanities it is common practice to read a piece of literature and discuss it.  This is also practiced in science and is the purpose of this exercise.  Each student is assigned a communication from the current  literature (inorganic, JACS, organometallics, J. Phys. Chem) and the student presents this paper to the class.  The class will also have the opportunity to read the article prior to the presentation, and I post each paper on my LMS page.  The presenter will be responsible for explaining the paper, and leading a critical discussion.  This is not an easy assignment since these papers are filled with chemical jargon, but an important part of their chemical education is to be able to tackle the literature.  In addition a lot of this jargon is covered during the semester.