Read the two sources and analyze them and write answering the following: • Who is the author? Is the author a man/woman, rich/poor, powerful/not powerful, foreign observer/member of the society, young/old, first-hand observer/secondary writer, some with something to gain/someone with something to lose? These are just categories to think about that might tell us something about the text and its content. • Why is the author writing this? • Who is the author writing it for (that is, who is the audience)? Does the audience affect the content or style? If so, how? • When did the author write this? Does the date it was written affect its content or style? • What genre is the text? In other words, is it a poem, a song, a history, a biography, a story (fiction), an ethnography, a law code, a religious text, a court record, a drama, etc.? How does the genre affect the content? • What does the author include? What does s/he leave out? • Does the success or failure of the author’s life/career affect the content or style? • Do you find the author reliable? Why or why not? • What are the main messages, themes, or points of the text? • What can we learn from the texts about the society that produced them? • What can we learn from them about Western Civilization? The Battle of Poitiers (732) https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/arab-poitiers732.asp Einhard's Life of Charlemagne https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/einhard1.asp