Literature of NJ - Marc Mappen

This is a straightforward assignment. Write a paper on Marc Mappen as a historian and writer. Your
paper should have a thesis and develop an argument using examples from his essays as your evidence.
You are free to take any approach you like, but keep in mind that you want to choose an argument that
you can apply to several of his writings. Keep in mind, too, that you want to persuade your reader of
something that needs demonstrating. It won’t be enough, for example, to say “Marc Mappen writes
interesting essays about New Jersey” and then go on to summarize several of his essays.
Unlike the historians who write for captive audiences (either students or other historians), Mappen
wrote most of his essays for a newspaper (The New York Times). How does this audience likely
to differ from the captive kind, and how does his writing take this difference into account? In other
words, what does he do to keep us engaged and entertained?