NEGOTIATING THE CONTACT ZONE

<p>The author begins this article by charting a brief history of the teaching of basic writing, suggesting that work in the field has been shaped by three overarching metaphors of growth, initiation, and conflict. He then argues that recent views of the basic writing classroom as a site of struggle, as what Mary Louise Pratt has called a "contact zone," have failed to offer a compelling view of public discourse as a forum not only for expressing but negotiating cultural and political differences.</p>