Corey Metzner Scheffer English 201-17 Oct.

4, 2010 A socio-cultural commentary Arts of the contact zone by Mary Louise Pratt takes a deep look into the grey area where different social groups collide. She starts by introducing her subject: literacy, and she shows her understanding of the meaning of literacy by telling a story of her son when he was approximately six years old. Her son falls in love with baseball cards and at first struggles but later has an improvement in his phonetics just from reading the cards. The cards dont only help his reading skills, but as he grows it gives him knowledge about exchange, American history, geography, math skills, what it means to be cheated, and it gives him a way to connect with adults. What starts with baseball cards grows to become a maturing factor and makes him a literate person in his social group. After the story Pratt introduces a long lost document found