Living in Our Own Contact Zones - Assignment Example

This organization was effective because it refuted each point as the essay progressed without having to constantly backtrack to places much earlier in the essay. All points were on target as to the thesis, but a bit more explanation could be given as to how children constitute a different culture than adults – this is not what Pratt meant when she talked about culture, so explaining the relationship as a cultural one might be a good opening paragraph. Furthermore, I think more concrete examples might have been useful – this assumes that everyone’s thanksgiving practices are the same, but indicating where these impressions emerge from might be useful – is it movies about holidays? Personal experience? Etc. The introduction was one of the best parts of the essay, because it connected Pratt’s ideas to everyday practices, like dining.

Essay 2: Living in our contact zones This essay’s thesis is essential that finding your way into contact zones, or learning to embrace the, can be a valuable experience and one that people should not avoid. The essay is organized largely as a personal narrative, describing the beginning in a contact zone – coming into a situation as a freshman where she felt very uncomfortable, and the subsequent development of comfort in that arena and the eventual satisfaction of forming satisfying life-long relationships, and making an incredibly successful field hockey team, with people that she at first felt uncomfortable with.

This organization makes sense, but it is easy to get lost in the narrative, and perhaps breaking it up into smaller paragraphs to highlight turning points would make it a much more readable essay. Most of the points were generally in place with the thesis because this is a personal essay talking about how emerging into a difficult new culture can be valuable, but I think it might be important to recognize the difference between say, going from high school to college versus going from America to Sudan in terms of cultural shift and contact zones.

The most convincing example is the high school where she gave specific examples of how things improved – the more general statements tended to work less well. I think highlighting the process of moving from contact zones to comfort, and what steps along the way could have used more development, as could developing how high school versus college constitute different cultures, as this is not exactly what Pratt meant as far as I read.