“Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right”

What a reader response paper is:

A critical essay that tells the reader what reading selection means to you. It reflects a close reading of the work, contains specific examples drawn from the work (documented parenthetically with page numbers), and provides your well-considered opinion of the work’s strengths and/or shortcomings. The essay demonstrates that you have read the entire text, internalized and contextualized the arguments, and can articulate and substantiate your reactions to it.

Ask yourself the following questions as you prepare to write a reader response paper. You don’t need to include the answers to these questions in your paper, but they can help you organize your thoughts and decide what you’d like to write about in your response.

1. What were the main arguments of the text (hint: historians often put these in the introduction or early in the chapter)?
2. Did the author, in your opinion, do a decent job of following through on those arguments? Why or why not?
3. How is the book “talking” to other parts of the historical literature?
4. Is the author styling him or herself as a particular type of historian (women’s historian, social historian, political historian, etc.)?
5. Who are their subjects?
6. What is their purpose in writing this book?
7. What parts of the book did you like the most, and why?
8. How does this book relate to what interests you about American history?
9. What did you learn from it? If you didn’t learn much, why was that?
10. What questions did this text leave you with? What would you like to learn more about?
11. What about the author’s style and methodology did you like or dislike?
12. How are they using sources and how does this reflect on the integrity and validity of their arguments?

Sample format:
1. Introduction: Very briefly introduce the author, title of work, and 1-2 sentences of context. What is the author claiming? Do you agree?
2. Background: ONE paragraph that introduce the texts, main arguments and context in which they was written, and place the text in its historiographic context (i.e., how it relates to other literature on the subject).
3. Analysis: Use the remainder of the paper to hone in on a certain element of the texts and provide your opinion of it. This, as much as anything, is the “thesis” of this essay. You may choose to focus on the main argument of the book, or just one element of the book (for example, the author’s treatment of gender or the author’s conclusions about the durability of third parties). I want to hear your thoughts about the content, not style. Your analysis should contain direct quotes or paraphrased examples from the text (all cited with page numbers) to support your argument. I should be able to clearly tell what you thought of the author’s claims.
4. Conclusion: ONE brief paragraph that brings us back to your entering statement and states the wider significance of this work to you, and to the literature.

Let me know if you have ant questions! Thank you in advance.