Literacy Coach: A Self-study of the Complexities of Coaching from a Discursive, Interactional Perspective.

Abstract

This qualitative study draws upon ethnographic approaches to investigate literacy coaching as a complex social, discursive, and situated phenomena by conducting micro-analyses of discursive interactions between a literacy coach and two teachers. The study addresses gaps in what researchers know about teacher-coach conversations with the focus on possible resolutions for the unproductive complications of coaching. Two questions initially guided this research: How do teachers and coaches interact in ways that support their learning? How do coaches interact effectively with teachers who hold different views of learning? In preparation for the coaching conversations, thematic, content, and discourse analyses were applied to the data corpus, consisting of video, audio, field notes, and classroom artifacts of two teachers' summer school instruction and two extended coaching conversations. Discrepant data were then re-analyzed using fine-grained discourse analysis approaches. By drawing upon a range of discursive constructs including alignment, framing, power, politeness, and positioning theory, the study attempts to illustrate why and demonstrate how coaching interactions are at times fraught and invariably complex. The study affirms the benefit of a view of coaching as a socially co-constructed phenomenon that varies in-the-moment through language-in-use and complicates what it means for coaches and teachers to be aware of discursive theories and methods. Tactical discursive decisions made during fleeting moments of interaction can derail prior strategic planning; and, even strategic planning can be off target. The illustrations of these circumstances provided in this study urge a more expansive conceptualization of what constitutes successful coaching. This more elaborated conceptualization of coaching may offer coaches ways to analyze interactions that afford new understandings of building trust and relationships. It introduces and problematizes the concept of alignment, and it brings into question the notion of resistance by reframing the problem as interactional rather than attitudinal. With discourse analysis as a tool for investigating fraught interactions—formerly viewed as resistance, it may be possible for coaches to unearth the concerns undermining efforts to move conversations forward.