During my last co-consultation I tried to pay particular attention to the cultural and rhetorical differences between consultant and client. Severino's article on contact zones offers an interesting approach to the Writing Center's role in the academic community, and I tried to observe the article's concepts firsthand.

The conception of the Writing Center as a place of struggle and recovery seemed apparent in the session. The client, who was a second language learner, was indeed struggling with the American approach to writing a research paper. After talking through the area he wanted to focus on and reading over his rubric, we were able to develop a mutual understanding of where the session was heading. In a sense, we grappled with the cultural differences (mostly linguistic and grammatical) between consultant and client throughout the session. The dialog about the paper's topic was, however, difficult for the client because it was carried out in a second language.

Severino's notion of a dialect's effect on the contact zone was easily distinguished in this session. Though both parties were on equal grounds, and both were willing to negotiate between cultures, language still posed a dilemma. It was difficult to discern the client's true intentions in each sentence in the paper, and it was equally difficult to communicate how exactly certain rhetorical strategies could be applied. Though we did not explicitly discuss cultural differences between consultant and client during this session, the argumentative and rhetorical differences uncovered reflected the Writing Center as a contact zone. Overall, despite the language barrier, this session was quite successful in meeting the client's needs and also provided insight into the mechanics of Severino's perception of the Writing Center as a linguistic contact zone.