CHAPTER 11: The Middle Level Literacy Coach: Navigating Multiple Roles in Context

Literacy coaching is an increasingly popular model of professional development that continues to evolve as it expands across diverse school settings (Marsh et al., 2008; Walpole & Blamey, 2008). The goal of literacy coaching is to help teachers build knowledge of effective practices in reading and writing, improve instruction, and increase student achievement (Deussen, Coskie, Robinson, & Autio, 2007). The appeal of this professional development model is its promise to provide reflective learning opportunities, over time, within school contexts (Poglinco et al., 2003). Encouraged by the relatively widespread implementation of coaching in early elementary grades (Moss, Jacob, Boulay, Horst, & Poulos, 2006), literacy coaching has spread upward to the middle level, a phenomenon that has outpaced research on coaching effectiveness (Neufeld & Roper, 2003). The International Reading Association (IRA) responded to this development by establishing a set of standards for middle and secondary level literacy coaches (IRA, 2006). Noting the paucity of research on coaching, the IRA recommends researching existent literacy coaching efforts, asking questions important to practitioners, and relating findings to inform practice (2006). These recommendations are particularly salient to middle level coaching, as little research has examined the work of literacy coaches in relation to the unique features of middle level settings. Recognizing the need to describe middle level literacy coaching in context, I conducted a case study guided by the following research questions: