Janice Wolff. “Tutoring in the ‘Contact Zone.’”
Wolff discusses ways to create safe zones, “spaces where groups can constitute themselves as horizontal, homogeneous, sovereign communities with high degrees of trust, shared understandings, temporary protection from legacies of oppression” (Pratt qtd. in Wolff 44), within the contact zone of the writing center, noting that the student/tutor relationship is one of asymmetrical power and experience. She points out the irony of colleges aiming to increase diversity through recruitment and then telling the new diverse recruits that they talk, write, and think like everyone else on campus. She then focuses on describing how she and one of the students she tutored worked to create a safe house, emphasizing that “a safe house requires construction” (49) and that safe houses cannot exist until tutors engage with students on an equal playing field.
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