This paper reports on the theoretical and political rationale for an assessment strategy designed to support the development of academic literacies and learning cultures amongst undergraduate and postgraduate education students in one metropolitan and one regional university in Australia. The 'Critical Review' is an integrated assessment task that aims to promote a student culture of learning preparedness, critical thinking, scholarly writing and educational ethics by equipping students with both content-specific knowledges and generalisable skills and orientations to academic learning. The Critical Review is both formative and summative in purpose, with primary emphasis given to its usefulness to individual students across a diversity of learning environments and assessment modalities, as well as its importance to enhancing institutional learning cultures. The flexibility of the assessment design is readily incorporated into a range of course structures, and adapts readily to studies in a variety of disciplinary fields.