This post on taking a critical coaching stance is, simply put, on point. While it might be a stretch to say the author created critical coaching, as a number of scholars have been drawing on similar frameworks for some time (including some from our UW family...), I truly appreciate the clarity with which the author asserts the need to ground literacy coaching work in asset-oriented perspectives that seek to address issues of equity. 

I've been reflecting on this topic a lot lately since we began searching for literature to guide our SIG on Coaching for Equity. It has also become apparent in our current coaching study that equity is taking a backseat within our participant coaching beliefs, as it has been subsumed within the broader belief of focusing on student evidence. But a focus on student evidence does not in itself drive deeper into structural questions about equity or how they play out within classroom instruction. Even a more strategic focus on the use of culturally responsive practices or analyzing the ways in which assessments construct language demands that may or may not be relevant to learning goals could be easy inroads to engage more constructive and equity-oriented dialogue in coaching conversations.

All of this speaks to the larger point made by ILA in distinguishing between coaching to conform, coaching into practice, and coaching for transformation. How we support coaches to engage in this work is essential to the potential impact of coaching efforts, especially if we hope to see instructional coaching live up to the high expectations that have been placed upon this form of PD.

After reading this chapter on "Studying Writers' Office Work," it is clear that I have not given enough attention to the importance of topic selection in the writing process. Ray makes an important distinction between how experienced and inexperienced writers select topics  highlighting how experienced writers realize that the writing is what makes the reading engaging, not the topic.

This passage helped me to see blindspots in my own writing instruction. In the past, I've focused my efforts on teaching the writing process to redefine what it means to engage in active and ongoing revision, as many of my students still struggle to differentiate revision from editing. But in doing so, I think it's pretty clear I've been shortchanging what it means to actively engage in prewriting. With limited time to delve deep into writing instruction, I also find myself wondering if this perspective could be addressed more strategically within a student writing project as opposed to a separate topic within understanding the writing process?

​In particular, Ray's writing has shifted my perspective for drafting digital texts within my larger-scale multiliteracies book response project. While I position topic selection as based on a writer's individual purpose (emerging from their reading(s), knowledge of technologies, experience with genres, personal interests, etc), I have not been as intentional about (a) how to help them discover that purpose; (b) how to develop that purpose prior to beginning the drafting process; (c) or how to transfer this experience to the classroom for their own students. Moving forward, I can envision how a more intentional entrance into these projects could greatly enhance the outcomes and the likelihood of impacting future practice.

Inspiration from Wondrous Words by Katie Wood Ray.

Inclusive coaching (Sweeney, 2016) begins with a cohesive vision for coaching that is shared and consistently communicated by administrators and coaching staff. Without a concerted effort to embrace the cultural shifts associated with a 'coaching is for everyone' mindset, the outcomes will likely fall flat. In other words, coaches cannot tackle inclusive coaching on their own. Nor can they hope to embrace this aim within individual coaching cycles alone. BUT. The goal-setting that takes place within those cycles is fundamental to making this shift. So what does this approach to goal-setting look like?