Automorphisms of a ring

Let R be a commutative ring with 1, and σ:RR be a ring automorphism.
(a) Show that F={rRσ(r)=r} is a subring of R (with 1).
(b) Show that if σ2 is the identity map on R, then each element of R is the root of a monic polynomial of degree 2 in F[x], where F is as in (a).