Objective
Write a book report on Jane McAlevey’s book, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age.
The objective of this assignment is to help you (i) extend your knowledge of a particular social movement or social movement issue, (ii) identify, analyze, and describe major themes and evidences in social movement literature, (iii) apply sociological theories and concepts in social movement analysis, and (iv) communicate sociological analysis of social movement literature through oral and written expressions, (v), provide useful, theoretically-informed, practical insights and assistance “to “movements that are not moving.”
Description
Your book report should be 8-9 typed pages long (double-spaced, one-inch margins). Overall, your book report should focus on the central argument(s) (thesis) of the book followed by a thorough description of evidence presented in the book to back up the author’s claims. In the introduction of the book report, you will identify the author’s thesis and explain it in your own words. You will include a brief introduction of the topic or the summary of the book to provide a meaningful context for the thesis statement. In your Introduction you will also tell the reader the three distinct pieces of evidence or cases—that is, the three chapters from McAlevey, each one is a case—that you will analyze in your report.
In the conclusion, provide an overall assessment of the evidence the author provided and whether it backs up the argument.
Your book report should include the following sections:
Title page
Introduction
Identify the topic statement
Summarize the background of the book/topic, and identify your three pieces of evidence
Evidence (Evidence 1, 2, & 3)
Describe the evidence
Explain how this evidence does or does not support the thesis statement.
Identify and apply relevant sociological concepts and theories in the description and explanation
IV. Conclusion
Re-state the topic statement
Assess the sociological analysis of evidences and their link to the thesis statement
These following questions may help you to orient your reading and writing.
What is your overall opinion of the book? On what basis has this opinion been formulated? What kind of evidence does the author provide to make his or her points?
If someone asked what this book is about or what have you learned reading the book, what would you say?
Citation
All you will need for sources is the McAlevey book, and other works assigned for class. Therefore, for the report, when you cite from texts or take ideas from them, you can simply use scientific notation—examples, (McAlevey 2016: 10), (Piven 2006 :15), Nilsen and Cox 2013: 65).
