A NARRATIVE INQUIRY INTO THE INFLUENCE OF COACHING

This narrative inquiry studied the influences of coaching methodology, critical incidents, and critical relationships on three specific teacher knowledge communities – the Portfolio Group, the Houston ISD literacy coach network, and the Imperial ISD Secondary English Language Arts helping teacher workgroup. This inquiry is situated within the culturally, economically, and ethnically diverse metropolitan region of a large southwestern city, Houston, and the adjoining community, Cane Towne. The purpose of this narrative inquiry is to uncover the characteristics of peer coaching and to investigate the possible influences of critical relationships and critical incidents in specific teacher knowledge communities all situated within and impacted by alternative models of professional learning communities. This dissertation addresses the following research questions: What role does coaching in a knowledge community play in the formation of reflective practice? How do critical incidents and vii relationships influence the members of a knowledge community? The field texts for this inquiry included the following: journals, the Hardy Academy Portfolios, archived emails, the traveling journals and transcripts from the Portfolio Group, and transcribed interviews conducted with members from all three groups. The researcher employed Clandinin and Connelly’s (2000) narrative tools of broadening, burrowing and restorying the narratives in this study. In addition, the newsletters and publications created by and about the Portfolio Group, Critical Friends Groups, and the Houston ISD literacy coach network illuminated and provided additional perspectives of each group.