More things than dreamt of in our philosophy: Tutoring, administration, and other peculiarities of writing center work

This dissertation examines the ways in which the beliefs and practices of writing center tutors and administrators are deeply informed by forces other than published writing center theory. Seven tutors---three graduate student tutors and four undergraduate or "peer" tutors---and two administrators from Writing Consultation Services, a writing center at a large research university, participated in this ethnographic study. The administrators participated in interviews on the writing center's history and their own perspectives on hiring and training; the tutors conducted four audiotaped tutorials each, all of which were observed and transcribed with attention to discourse features. The tutors read their transcripts and participated in one hour-long focused interview each; using local observations of the center, the administrators' and tutors' comments, critical discourse analysis of the transcripts, and scholarship on institutional discourse, I developed three major findings that suggest multiple considerations for imagining and organizing a writing center: (1) that an institution's ethos has concrete effects on tutoring practice---for example, an institution shaped by a Hierarchy of Professionalisms creates "better" and "worse" kinds of tutoring for staff to practice; (2) that tutors may situate themselves in a range of positions within that institutional context---given their own beliefs and the pressures of the institution in which they work, tutors may fall into, for example, Disciplined/Disciplining, Conservative, or Critical practice; and (3) that the ways tutors situate themselves can be revealed in the special fabric of a writing center tutorial: discourse. Building on these findings, the conclusion suggests relevant questions that writing center administrators should grapple with as they develop their own visions of their particular writing centers and the kind(s) of tutoring they want taking place within them. Besides offering questions designed to create administrative and pedagogical intentionality specific to an individual writing center, the conclusion recommends that all writing center directors include in their training programs critical discourse analysis of closely transcribed tutorials, both tutors' own and their peers'.