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PurposeThis article presents a case study of Kelly, a third-grade teacher enrolled in a literacy leadership course within a Master of Reading program. In this course, practicing teachers completed an assignment in which they implemented a literacy coaching cycle with a colleague, video-recorded their interaction, and conducted critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the interaction. The authors explore how engaging in CDA influenced Kelly's enactment of professional identities as she prepared to be a literacy leader.Design/methodology/approachData presented in this article are taken from a larger study of four white, middle-class teachers enrolled in the course. Data sources included the students' final paper and semistructured interviews. The researchers used qualitative coding methods to analyze all data sources, identify prominent themes, and select Kelly as a focal participant for further analysis.FindingsFindings indicate that Kelly's confidence as a literacy leader grew after participating in the coaching cycle and conducting CDA. Through CDA, Kelly explored how prominent discourses of teaching and learning, particularly those relating to novice and expert status, influenced Kelly in-the-moment coaching interactions.Originality/valuePrevious literacy coaching research suggests that literacy coaches need professional learning opportunities that support a deep understanding of coaching stances and discursive moves to effectively support teachers. The current study suggests that CDA may be one promising method for engaging literacy coaches in such work because it allows coaches to gain understandings about how discourses of teaching and learning function within coaching interactions.

The field of literacy research has seen a recent surge in scholarship focusing on how matter—both human and nonhuman—comes to matter in literacy research and practice. This article explores how new materialist theories may be recruited for literacy research motivated by an anti-racist ethic. We present an illustrative intra-action analysis of a short autobiographical video produced by Malcolm, a Black male high school student, for a digital autobiography class assignment. Our analysis, informed by both new materialist and poststructuralist theories and emphasizing both discourse and materiality, produces varied interpretations of Malcolm and his literacy practices. Based on our multitheoretic analysis, we raise ethical concerns regarding analyses of racialized students’ literacy practices that emphasize materiality and affect without also retaining a critical eye toward powerful discourses of race and racism. We end with implications and recommendations for others engaging new materialisms in literacy research.

The absence of social studies curriculum is a problem because it undermines the essential purposes of schooling: to prepare participatory, contributing members of a democratic society. In this arti...

A techno-rational perspective of teaching and learning is common as teachers are increasingly inundated with messages of measurement, standardization, and accountability. Within this perspective, teacher development is seen as mastery of skills, teachers’ learning is conceptualized as linear with a predetermined and predictable trajectory, and the role of literacy coach is limited to supporting the implementation of best practices. In this article, the author employs a microethnographic approach to discourse analysis to explore how literacy coaches and teachers negotiate discourses of teacher development during coaching interactions. Findings highlight how dominant discourses of teacher development may constrain professional learning interactions. The author argues that a flexible view of teacher development as breaking away may foster more meaningful professional learning, support coaching relationships, and spur instructional innovation.

In this conceptual literature review, the authors analyze research from the last 20 years to explore how social class discourses are reproduced, resisted, and appropriated within Kindergarten through Grade 12 classrooms in the United States. The findings challenge commonly held deficit discourses about students and families from economically disadvantaged communities and highlight how discourses are sustained and reproduced in schools through educators’ class-based assumptions, high-stakes assessment practices, and class-biased curriculum. Findings also highlight the unique and varied ways that students negotiate dominant discourses of social class as they perform hybrid class identities, resist deficit discourses, and explore class status and relations. The authors offer a rationale for considering social class more prominently within social justice-oriented teaching and research and provide suggestions for educators to engage with issues of social class in schools.

In this study, a microethnographic approach to discourse analysis was used to explore how literacy coaches and teachers discursively enacted emotions as they negotiated issues of identity, power, and positioning during video-recorded literacy coaching interactions. The coaches and teachers avoided shame, fear, and guilt as they positioned themselves and each other in relation to idealized notions of best practices and good teacher. Findings suggest that literacy coaches and teachers may benefit from acknowledging the emotional aspects of their work and from entering into discussions about emotions in order to support the development of a shared vision for teaching and learning.

In this article, the researchers use positioning theory and de Certeau’s theoretical insights into cultural production in everyday life to examine how first-year literacy coaches negotiate issues of power, positioning, and identity during their professional development. Data were collected during a yearlong qualitative study of literacy coaches participating in a district–university partnership to provide professional development to first-year literacy coaches. The researchers used positioning analysis of three small stories drawn from interviews with literacy coaches and one vignette from a professional development session to investigate how the literacy coaches positioned themselves within the moral order of the district’s literacy and professional development model. Findings demonstrate how the literacy coaches both shaped and were shaped by the institutional spaces through which they moved as they tactically negotiated conflicting expectations and discourses about coaching. These negotiations highlight the emotional nature of literacy coaches’ work as they co-constructed their identities and negotiated understandings of how school spaces are used and the purposes of literacy coaching. The researchers argue that it is necessary to move beyond current conceptions of literacy coaching as a series of roles and tasks to recognize the complexities of literacy coaching and to offer more meaningful professional development for literacy coaches.