Writing Center Journal

Two recent books deal directly with the challenges of global change and the increasing frequency of intercultural encounters in our institutions and in our daily lives. Listeningto the World zn Intercultural Competence address powerful changes occurring in the academic contexts we inhabit; these books can assist us as we teach, direct writing centers, and tutor an increasingly multicultural clientele. Both books intermingle theory with practice and address similar diversity issues; however, the writers' backgrounds and specialties as well as their audiences and primary purposes are dissimilar. These differences make the books nice companion pieces for training graduate and advanced undergraduate writing center tutors and, I would argue, required reading for writing center directors.

This past year saw the publication of two new books devoted specifically to the work of writing centers, and, as Jeanette Harris pointed out in these pages in 1992, book-length publications about writing centers are still rare enough that each "must bear the weight of great expectation and close scrutiny" (205). Writing Centers in Context : Twelve Case Studies , edited by Joyce A. Kinkead and Jeanette G. Harris, consists of extended descriptions of twelve different writing centers. These profiles offer clear, vivid descriptions of each program's history, purpose, philosophy, services, staffing, training, and administration. Thus the book emphasizes the big picture, the macro-level of writing centers. As its title promises, The Dynamics of the Writing Conference: Social and Cognitive Interaction^ edited by Thomas Flynn and Mary King, examines the much more intimate setting of writing center conferences, focusing on individual instruction and the interaction between a teacher and a student. As will become clear, these books are so different that they need to be considered separately in order to understand and evaluate

When those of us who run high school writing centers got started, we learned quickly to make it up as we went along. We used scotch tape and handmaids until something better appeared. Few rules existed. The references available to people establishing writing centers contained some good concepts, but none presented the whole picture. In The High School Writing Center Pamela Farrell gives us a guide book that shows ways to put together places where "a community of writers" might gather (ix).