This paper illustrates how the Analytic Guiding Frame (AGF) and the Overall Guiding Frame (OGF) are applied when analytic shifts occur in qualitative data analysis. Analytic shifts mainly occur when a proposed analytical method is found to be not fully amenable for analysis because of the contextually-bound nature of qualitative data. In this paper, the illustration located in the field of literacy education revolves around how a methodological and analytical problem was confronted during the fieldwork/ analysis stage of research and how analytic negotiations were made with the help of the AGF/OGF framework. From here, it is proposed that much more consideration on matters of epistemology, methodology, research objective and research questions in qualitative research must be made when the iterative process of qualitative data analysis takes place. © 2019 Nova Southeastern University. All rights reserved.