Common Core ELA7th GradeReading: Informational

RI.7.9: Two Authors, One Topic, Different Evidence

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.9 · Cluster: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas.

The Official Wording

Analyze how two or more authors writing about the same topic shape their presentations of key information by emphasizing different evidence or advancing different interpretations of facts.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 7, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RI.7.9 Means in Plain English

Seventh graders read two or more authors on one topic and show how each shapes it, by choosing different evidence or reading the same fact differently. One account of the transcontinental railroad stresses the golden spike, another the Chinese crews who blasted through the Sierra Nevada.

Sixth graders (RI.6.9) compared two authors’ presentations of the same events, such as a memoir and a biography. Seventh grade asks why the accounts differ: what each author chose to stress and how each interpreted shared facts. Eighth grade (RI.8.9) takes on texts that conflict over facts.

RI.7.9 I Can Statements

I can compare how two authors present the same topic.
I can identify the evidence each author chooses to emphasize.
I can explain how two authors interpret the same fact differently.

RI.7.9 Worked Example

Both accounts are accurate and share one key fact, and the weak answer declares a winner instead of asking what each author chose to stress.

Read the Story

Account 1, from a history of American travel: On May 10, 1869, workers drove a ceremonial golden spike at Promontory Summit in the Utah Territory, joining the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads. A trip from New York to San Francisco that once took months overland by ox team or by ship now took about a week.Account 1: Telegraph lines flashed the news across the country, and cities fired cannons and held parades. The railroad tied the nation together, carrying freight from Western farms to Eastern cities and more settlers west every year.Account 2, from a history of immigrant workers: Thousands of Chinese workers made up most of the Central Pacific’s workforce. They blasted tunnels through the granite of the Sierra Nevada, often by hand, and many died in explosions and avalanches.Account 2: They were paid less than white workers for the same jobs, and almost none of them appear in the famous photograph of the golden spike ceremony. When the trip west shrank to about a week, settlers poured onto the Plains, and the Native nations who lived there lost hunting grounds and land.

A short passage written for this page.

Question: Both accounts say the trip west shrank to about a week. How does each author use that fact, and what evidence does each choose to emphasize?

Not Yet“Account 2 is more accurate because Account 1 leaves out the Chinese workers. Account 1 is biased.”It ranks the accounts instead of analyzing them, and nothing in Account 1 is false. The question asks what each author chose to stress and how each reads the shared fact, and the answer touches neither.

Meets the Standard“Account 1 stresses the ceremony, the telegraph and the parades, so the railroad appears as a national achievement, and it reads the one-week trip as what ‘tied the nation together.’ Account 2 stresses who did the hardest, deadliest work and who was left out of the photograph, and it reads the same one-week trip as the reason settlers poured onto the Plains and Native nations lost their land. Both are accurate. They differ in whose experience counts as the main story.”The answer names the evidence each author chose, shows one shared fact interpreted two ways, and explains what the difference adds up to without calling either account wrong.

Question Stems to Use

What fact or event do both authors include?What does each author do with that shared fact?What evidence does one author include that the other leaves out?Whose experience does each account put at the center?Is either account inaccurate, or do they differ in emphasis?

Common Mistakes with RI.7.9

Picking a winner

“Account 2 is right and Account 1 is wrong.”

Try this: Have students check every sentence of both accounts for accuracy first. When both pass, the question becomes what each chose to stress.

Comparing topics instead of choices

“Account 1 is about the spike and Account 2 is about workers.”

Try this: Ask why each author included those details: what does the reader end up believing about the railroad after each account?

Missing the shared fact

An answer that never notices both accounts use the one-week trip

Try this: Start by highlighting every fact the two accounts share, then ask what conclusion each author draws from that same fact.

Where RI.7.9 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.6.9Compare how two authors present the same events, such as a memoir and a biography of the same person.

AlongsideRH.6-8.9Analyze the relationship between a primary and a secondary source on the same topic.RL.7.9Compare a fictional portrayal of a time or place with a historical account of the same period.

Comes NextRI.8.9Analyze texts that give conflicting information and pinpoint where they disagree on fact or interpretation.

Practice RI.7.9

Quick Check

What fact appears in both accounts?
That the trip across the country shrank to about a week once the railroad was finished.
What evidence does Account 2 include that Account 1 leaves out?
Any of: Chinese workers made up most of the Central Pacific’s workforce, many died blasting tunnels, they were paid less than white workers, almost none appear in the famous photograph, and Native nations lost hunting grounds and land.
How do the two authors interpret the one-week trip differently?
Account 1 treats it as what tied the nation together. Account 2 treats it as what sent settlers onto the Plains, costing Native nations their land.

RI.7.9: Other Names

RI.7.9CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.7.9