Drawing on the work of Paulo Freire, Morrell argues for critical, humanizing inquiry spaces in which literacy teachers learn with and from one another. However, he points to critical race theory and poses important questions, for example, wondering whether empowered spaces for teachers are transferred into empowerment for students.

Cahnmann-Taylor draws on Boalian Theatre of the Oppressed to offer a practice for literacy teachers and coaches that can open up multiple perspectives and multiple levels of intentions and motivations for a teacher's decision making. She challenges coaches and teachers to engage in artistic examinations of multiplicity to move toward…

Dozier illuminates the notion of intellectual unrest and the complexities of mandated professional development for teachers. She challenges readers to reconsider how mandated professional development is crafted and invites literacy coaches to become collaborative critical designers of practices with teachers to help them navigate competing…

Reading the implicit invitation in new literacies scholarship to reimagine pedagogy that leans into the lives of youth, Vasudevan reminds readers how the teacher's body is central to the meaning making of students in literacy classrooms. She extends this notion of embodiment to the work of the literacy coach and reiterates Skinner, Hagood,…

Tate applauds Rogers's use of teacher research to illustrate how literacy coaches and teachers can approach an accelerative literacy framework with a critical literacy lens. Citing her own work, as well as the work of other critical literacy educators, Tate reminds readers that teacher research is a careful plan that encompasses the power of…

Hall and Campano echo Jones and Rainville's call for compassion and humility in literacy coaching and argue that this is an urgent endeavor in an increasingly top-down educational climate. They offer collective analysis, through teacher inquiry communities and teacher activism, as a potential site of hope for making sense of the larger…

Reilly leans on the metaphor of rhizomes to remind readers that the work of a coach is not linear or hierarchical, but fluid and dynamic. Reilly frames literacy coaches as rhizomatic agents in schools and urges coaches to appreciate resistance and interruptions as critical and necessary for transformative teaching and learning.

Like many high school English teachers, I often had a difficult time getting my students to write. I knew the key to getting them to write was to find activities that interested them. What do most students love? They love going out to eat! They love not just the food, but the whole experience of "going out." Cozzy's Restaurant was this teacher's…

Examines the historical and theoretical foundations of the factory model of education and contrasts it to the more recently developed inquiry model. Argues that the factory model of education is no longer useful since democracy in the twenty-first century requires citizens who are able to think critically and use learning and language flexibly to…

Addresses the concept of "Standardized Tests as Quality Control." Discusses the types of assessment used in today's schools and the need for a new perspective concerning assessment. Outlines a different perspective for assessment, one based on reflective inquiry rather than measurement. Explains the characteristics that have helped support this…

Compares technology predictions from around 1989 with the technology of 2002. Discusses the place of computer-based assessment today, computer-scored testing, computer-administered formal assessment, Internet-based formal assessment, computerized adaptive tests, placement tests, informal assessment, electronic portfolios, information management,…

Describes a Chinese school where staff assumed students would succeed notwithstanding their learning problems. Suggests prudence in use of labels for students. Questions use of standardized tests as the primary measure of students' attainment of standards, and advocates increased use of classroom-based strategies. Ponders difficult questions that…

Argues that the goal of enhancing fairness and equity in the evaluation of students with learning difficulties will not be realized by merely introducing performance assessments. Suggests need for development of an empirical base to guide implementation and to reevaluate prevailing beliefs about student failure and the role of assessment in…

Explores the multi-faceted interventions schools must evolve if they are to make significant headway in addressing barriers to learning. Reviews how schools currently address barriers to learning, discusses deficiencies in current approaches, and outlines work designed to provide a new conceptual and programmatic framework for policy and practice,…

Suggests the field of education has paid little attention to complexities involved in large-scale replication of curricular changes and other new directions for school-based interventions, which has contributed to the failure of many reforms. Highlights a framework of general phases and specific steps for diffusion of major new approaches across a…