Vanessa Lopez

Professor Garcia

ENG 112

18 September 2018

“Actually, You Can Fix Stupid” Summary

In a recent New York Times article, “Actually, You Can Dix Stupid” Timothy Egan

suggests if we don’t want to see the end of Democracy, we need to create active and informed

citizens. Being a young citizen means you usually don’t speak up for yourself; you’re

intimidated to say your opinion for many reasons. Egan announces fox news censors young

citizens causing ignorance amongst the younger generations. Young citizens are being forced to

learn civics through experience, while educators prioritize science and technology over basic

citizenship. Associate justice of the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor defends “No one is born a

citizen, you have to be taught what that means.” It is not the kids faults everyone has to learn

how to be a citizen. Ever since the 1999 Columbine massacre, teaching has become do-it-

yourself leading the educational system to fail students. President Trump is the renaissance of

civic engagement. While women stood up against Trumps policies, the rebirth of civic

engagement started. Young citizens utilize science and technology to stand up for themselves;

leading Fox news to scold the youth population by claiming they don’t help at all. Because civics

isn’t being taught, young citizens are the least to vote. The NRA owns politicians, they need to

be voted out. In order to be well informed voters, young citizens need to be able to tell real new

vs fake news. Democracy dies when citizens feel powerless meaning if young citizens don’t

want democracy to die, we have to vote.

Vanessa,
A good start to the practice of critical thinking and summarizing. I will challenge you this
semester when summarizing to only discuss the evidence/details that really help clarify the
author’s argument. We’ll also have to work on connecting your ideas together. As it sits now,
though the information is absolutely correct, each sentence sits on a little bit of an island and
it’s difficult to see how each sentence fits with the next. Also, we’ll work on avoiding
editorializing, or, adding our own ideas/judgements to the summary (see highlighted sentence
above).

You’ve kept the sentences mostly short and simple which adds TREMENDOUS clarity to your
writing.

Summary Rubric
Student:
Article Title:

Argument/Thesis: 0 1 2 3 4
Evidence/Support: 0 1 2 3 4
Purpose: 0 1 2 3 4
Audience: 0 1 2 3 4
Sub-total: 10 /16

Grammar/Mechanics: 0 1 2
Opinion: 0 1 2
Sub-total: 2 /2

Assignment Total: 12/18