Fostering Citizenship Skills with Kritik in the Undergraduate Classroom

Citizen Engagement is a skill that people learn from others. This paper focuses on the use of a new pedagogical software product that helps increase the amount and quality of student writing. We present a detailed explanation of two distinct ways of using the Kritik software. The authors implemented a new pedagogical tool, Kritik, in several of our courses during academic year 2021-2022, and in fall 2022. We are reporting preliminary results of our experience with this software in Face to Face, software supported courses. Our preliminary assessment is that that Kritik is a useful tool in many Face to Face political science classroom environments. With Kritik students write more, construct better arguments, and gain experience in peer evaluation. We expect these skills will better prepare students for effective civil discourse, and they will better understand decision making in the policy process and the complexity of citizen engagement.