Routledge Justice-Oriented Literacy Coaching: Toward Transformative Teaching

This book explores notions of justice-oriented literacy coaching and offers a way of being in the world with young people, teachers, and communities that centers transformative coaching, teaching, and learning. It is intended to disrupt the traditional and historical positioning of literacy coaches in schools today. Through the lens of social justice and liberatory education, Sailors and Manning begin a dialogue with literacy coaches to help them reconsider their own roles and positions as agents of change in schools. Using vignettes and stories to illustrate potential paths into emancipatory literacy learning environments, the authors present literacy as a socially-situated act of meaning-making. Accessible and inviting, this book provides pragmatic tools for literacy leaders to embody social justice, to grapple with big social concepts, to imagine possibilities, and to stimulate creative thinking with the teachers at their schools and with the students in their classrooms. Intended for literacy coaches in grades K-6 and graduate students in literacy education, this book includes a wealth of resources and examples from real-world contexts, as well as spaces for the reader to interact and engage with the text through journaling and self-reflection. Review "An invaluable resource for literacy coaches and teacher educators seeking to support teachers in facilitating disruptive literacy conversations with youth! Reframing literacy coaching from reproductive to transformative, Sailors and Manning ground their work in compelling examples of justice-oriented literacy coaches and the educators with whom they work, making connections between what happens in learning spaces and the theory and research that underlies it. They invite readers to engage in their own critically reflective dialogic journey throughout the book in embedded journaling spaces, and to extend their learning through justice-oriented conversation starters." ―Betina Hsieh, California State University Long Beach, USA "Justice-oriented Literacy Coaching offers us a new lens in which to examine the relationship between literacy coaches and teachers. Grounded in dialogic discourse, Sailors and Manning share the practices of literacy coaches who are committed to establishing trusting and caring relationships with teachers so that they can coach to transform how students relate to texts. By interrogating the practices of compliance and the power relationships between coaches and teachers, they situate coaching as an opportunity to support teachers as they reflect on the implications that their practice has on the learners, their funds of knowledge, and their development as change makers. This book urges the literacy coaches and those who prepared them to aspire to a truly democratic interaction." ―Pamela Mason, Harvard University, USA "This important book rightly reframes literacy coaches as ‘bridge builders’ whose roles are central to teaching for social justice. Sailors and Manning remind us of the need to move beyond ‘how-to’ guides for coaching and limited lists of ‘best practices’ to reframe and reimagine the work of literacy coaches to generate socially just teaching and learning spaces. In doing so, they nurture the power of imagination, inviting readers to enter into and theorize literacy coaching pedagogies to support social justice. This is a must-read for any literacy coaches and educators involved in literacy professional development." ―Lara J. Handsfield, Professor, Illinois State University, USA About the Author Misty Sailors is Professor of Language and Literacy and Chair of the Department of Teacher Education and Administration at the University of North Texas, USA. Logan Manning is a secondary school leader in Oakland, CA, USA.