Compare two contemporary accounts of the same historical event and explain how emphasis and word choice shape two different impressions of it.
When two sources describe the very same event, the differences between them are rarely about the basic facts -- they are almost always about emphasis. The Norman conquest of 1066 is recorded on both sides of the channel, and reading both tellings side by side shows exactly how the same event can be shaped into two different stories.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, kept by English monks, records 1066 in a terse, mournful tone: a year of disaster, a king killed in battle, a foreign duke crowned in his place. William of Poitiers, a Norman chronicler writing a flattering biography of William, tells a very different story: a rightful claim finally enforced, a brave and favored leader rewarded for his courage and faith. Neither source necessarily invents facts -- they simply choose what to dwell on and how to frame the same underlying events.
Mastery looks like: They can compare two accounts of the same real event and explain specifically how emphasis and tone, not necessarily disputed facts, create two different impressions.
Common stumbles: Assuming that two different accounts of the same event means one of them must be lying, rather than recognizing that emphasis alone can create very different impressions from agreed-upon facts.
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