Editing Permissions: Expansive Approaches to Writing Center Work

Abstract

Writing center pedagogy has long been defined by two enduring binary frameworks: that between nondirective and directive tutoring approaches, and the prioritization of higher-order, “global” writing concerns over lower-order concerns, namely grammar. Both frameworks position grammar as a site of deficit and remediation. The field has frequently swung like a pendulum between punitive correction and total avoidance of grammar, often leaving students—particularly first-generation, non-traditional, and multilingual writers—without the critical tools to navigate academic discourse. This dissertation argues that these oscillations stem from a fundamental discomfort with engaging with grammar as a critical, historical, and agentive site of meaning-making. By analyzing public-facing text from 74 writing center websites in the Pacific Northwest, this study reveals how institutional discourse reinforces these binaries through grammatical patterns that themselves reveal institutional hesitation, deferral, and the construction of an abstract “better writer” who is perpetually in training but never fully engaged with the materiality of language. To disrupt this cycle, I point to my study as a utilization of grammar both as a generative site of inquiry and itself a tool of inquiry. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis, Rhetorical Analysis, and Rhetorical Grammar, this project demonstrates how writing centers can move beyond the “pendulum swing” by examining the micro-level features of language and engaging them alongside macro-levels of power structures and meso-levels of meaning-making. Ultimately, this dissertation calls for a critical “pause” in writing center work, urging scholars and practitioners to engage with grammar as an expansive, dynamic arena instead of a static set of rules to be enforced or avoided.