Pratt's Contact Zone

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Every day we are faced with new challenges, obstacles, and situations, many of which involve meeting new people and learning more about those we know. Every day we deal with these new encounters in different ways depending on the people we meet and the things we learn. We make compromises, learn new things, and change old things in order to live in peace with the people we meet. Mary Louise Pratt has studied and observed these situations on a much larger scale as seen among cultures. These situations are defined in her work, “Arts of the Contact Zone”.


Today’s workplace, social gatherings, and classrooms can all be considered contact zones. Many culturesalso find themselves caught such zones. These contact zones are quite different than the voluntary contact zones encountered by people in every day lives. These come as a result of interaction between dominant and “inferior” societies. This is an important detail to remember because the interaction between students and teachers or workers and bosses is a much more voluntary one when compared with that of entire societies.


When we go through our day-to-day lives, we will probably enter the classroom at some point. As I have mentioned, many places that we encounter


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everyday can be considered contact zones. For the purpose of this essay, I will use the college English classroom as an example of a contact zone. Because of its size, the college English classroom can be defined into three separate groups. Group one consists of the students and their voice as a whole. Group two consists of each individual student and his/her relationship with the instructor, and group three consists of the instructor. Pratt defines contact zones into


only two groups; the dominant and inferior. As we go about our lives, we encounter much different situations than the cultures mentioned in Pratt’s essay; therefore we can alter her definition for the purposes of this example. Because of the size of the class, each individual student is able to have a voice outside of the main group. If we use Pratt’s terms, however the students are defined as the inferior group and the instructor as the dominant. In the classroom setting, it would be very hard to imagine the reversal the role of either group because of the role the institution (college) plays. The institution requires the instructor to conduct the course in a particular way, which means the students must be told what to do throughout the course with or against their will. Unlike many inferior cultures, the student, while being dominated by the instructor, has chosen their position with the knowledge that they would be treated as the inferior.


In order to fulfill requirements of the curriculum, today’s freshman college English classroom must accomplish certain goals. These goals or requirements that the college has set fourth are simply the institution’s way of


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measuring a student’s ability. These official requirements include making sure each student can effectively communicate ideas through the use of writing. Another is that every student must write a predetermined number of papers and pages. A third may be that a student must read and effectively interpret their readings through their writing. We all must face such requirements at school, in the office, or simply in everyday life.


Teachers must do certain things in the classroom to fulfill requirements within the curriculum as well. A teacher’s duties include attendance along with a plan on how to conduct the class. They must also be able to communicate with each student in order to better the student’s writing. As the dominant body, the teacher must also have the ability to carry out disciplinary action against the students to ensure that the positions of both groups are not compromised or reversed.


The requirements of the curriculum must be met in order for a class to fulfill requirements within the institution in the same way that a thousand mile journey begins with a single step. This is because fulfillment of the curriculum is among the goals of the institution. The institution has set up such goals only to ensure the success of the student in years to come. In the greater scheme of the Earth, it probably does not matter if a paper is four pages or if it is five, but we must start with small steps. The main goal of the institution is to shape the ability of the student to think, read, and write more effectively than the average person


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with the intent that the student will be a better writer, thinker, and in our society, a more desirable employee.


Unofficially, the classroom sets up a new set of goals. The students have been given the position of the inferior party within the class and probably desire to test the limits of this position through controversial thought and writing. Many students will not only desire to fulfill the requirements of the curriculum in order to pass the class, but also to push the limits of the instructor. This is done in the same way that inferior cultures try to rebel against the superior.


The unofficial goals of the instructors are commonly similar. We can relate these goals to Pratt’s definition of a contact zone. They include the dominant figure’s ability to learn from the inferior. This brings us to the debate of who learns more in the classroom, the teacher or the students? The answer to this question, although debated among students, must be left up to the instructor to answer. Only they can give an accurate answer to the question because each student knows what the instructor has taught them, but only the instructor knows what has been taught to them by the students.


Lastly, I would like to briefly explain Pratt’s unusual exercises such as “experiments in transculturation” and “autoethnorgaphy. Pratt defines “Experiments in transculturation” as “to describe processes whereby members of subordinated or marginal groups select and invent from materials transmitted by a dominant or metropolitan culture.” Autoethnography is described as the


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writing of a culture (normally inferior and involved in the contact zone) that is written with the intent to benefit the superior society.


As I have mentioned, “experiments in transculturation” are used in the everyday classroom, workplace, home, and life. If the instructor or institution is considered the dominant culture, the less dominant is assumed to be the students. The students then attend the classroom in order to “select and invent” from the knowledge attained from the instructor. Autoethnography however is used in the classroom as a reversal of transculturation. The students write in an effort to not only win the approval of the dominant body, but to teach and attempt to change the thought process of the instructor, which leads us back to the question, “who learns more?”





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