Justice-Oriented Literacy Coaching

Book excerpt: 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.