The article describes a new discipline for Russian universities, «Academic Writing (in Russian)», which aims to achieve a high level of academic literacy. The authors propose a form of organizing a practical course in the discipline “Academic writing” based on the model of a five-paragraph essay by I.B. Korotkina. The realities of a modern Russian university with short deadlines for mastering this discipline (about 36 hours) are taken into account. Focusing on text-centric and interdisciplinary approaches in choosing the fundamental principles of discipline organization allows us to organize work based on the creation of an original academic product – a scientific article of students, integrating the acquired competences within the core area of student training. As a text underlying practical work and providing an opportunity to get familiarized with the features of academic communication, the authors propose the format of a scientific article as a relatively small genre of scientific style.