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Upload your assigned readings and describe your class and what you want students to come away with. Anara generates discussion questions tied to the specific arguments in those texts, not generic topic prompts, alongside learning objectives and a suggested arc for the session. For faculty and teaching assistants preparing seminars from primary sources.

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1. Describe the task

Generic discussion questions do not get students to engage with what the texts actually argue. “What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?” works in almost any seminar on almost any topic. The questions that produce real discussion are the ones that require students to have read the specific argument in the specific text. Anara generates discussion questions from the actual content of the readings you upload. The questions are grounded in passages: a student who has not done the reading cannot answer them in generalities. You also get learning objectives calibrated to the level you name and a discussion arc that sequences the questions across a session. Here a faculty member in political theory is preparing a graduate seminar on democratic legitimacy and has assigned three papers by Habermas, Benhabib, and Cohen for next week’s class. 
I am preparing a graduate seminar on theories of democratic deliberation. The assigned readings for next week are three papers by Habermas, Benhabib, and Cohen, all uploaded to my library.

Generate five discussion questions that require engagement with the specific arguments in these texts. Each question should name the concept or passage it is drawing from. Then write three learning objectives for the session, appropriate for a PhD-level seminar. Finally, suggest a 90-minute discussion arc that sequences the five questions and allows time for student responses.

The session goal: students should be able to articulate where these three theorists agree on the normative conditions for legitimate deliberation and where they diverge on what counts as a valid reason.

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2. Give Anara context

Required context
  • The assigned readings in your library, in a folder or uploaded directly.
  • The level and type of class (undergraduate survey, graduate seminar, PhD workshop).
Optional context
  • A session goal or learning outcome you want the discussion to reach. Anara orients the arc toward it.
  • Any theoretical tension or debate you want students to grapple with. Anara builds questions around it rather than leaving the structure generic.

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3. What Anara creates

Five discussion questions grounded in specific arguments from the assigned texts, each naming the concept or author position it comes from. Three learning objectives calibrated to the class level. A suggested 90-minute discussion arc with timing notes and transitions. The output is your prep sheet: you edit the questions and use the arc as a guide. What it is for: making the reading-to-discussion step faster for seminars you teach on a recurring schedule.

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4. Follow-up prompts

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Draft a short opening mini-lecture

When you want to frame the session before discussion opens. 
Write a 10-minute opening lecture framing the core tension between Habermas and Cohen on what counts as a valid reason in deliberative democracy. The lecture should set up the first discussion question and give students who did not finish the readings enough context to participate. Keep it accessible but do not oversimplify the theoretical stakes.

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Generate a response paper prompt

When you want an assessment that requires engagement with the texts. 
Write a response paper prompt for this seminar. 600-800 words. Students take a position on whether Benhabib's expansion of the deliberative ideal improves on Habermas or departs from its core logic. Students must cite at least two specific passages from the assigned readings.

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Adapt the questions for an undergraduate course

When you teach the same material at multiple levels and need the difficulty calibrated differently. 
Take the five discussion questions you generated for the PhD seminar and adapt them for an upper-division undergraduate course. Keep the core theoretical content but remove the jargon and replace named-theory references with plain-language descriptions of the concepts. The students will have read the Habermas excerpt only, not the full paper.

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5. Tricks, tips, and troubleshooting

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How you word your prompt shapes what you get

State the session goal before asking for questions. A seminar goal like “students should be able to articulate where the theorists agree and diverge on valid reasons” produces questions that converge on that outcome. Without a goal, the questions cover the readings broadly but without structure. Name the class level too: a PhD seminar question and an undergraduate question are different registers, and Anara calibrates accordingly.

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Check the output against your own understanding

Anara generates questions from the passages it retrieves, which means it emphasizes the arguments it finds most prominent in the text. Your seminar may have a different emphasis: a passage you consider theoretically central may not surface at the top of a semantic search. Read through the five questions and check whether they cover the aspects of the readings you most want students to discuss. Swap or refocus any question that misses the key tension in your teaching of the material.

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What to do with the output next

Use the discussion arc as a planning document, not a script. Edit the timing based on how your students actually engage. The questions work best reformulated in your own voice: reading Anara’s output verbatim tends to sound more formal than the format benefits from. The response paper prompt generates an assessment you can assign as-is or revise; it pairs naturally with the citation workflow to show students how to ground claims in specific passages.