Su Yin Khor, writing program director
Photo credit Maxie Langenberg ’27.
CONTEXTUALIZING OUR WORDS
By Jeremy Powers ’24
College of the Atlantic is excited to welcome Su Yin Khor as the new director of the COA writing program and a faculty member in writing and rhetoric. Khor’s past research and pedagogical approach combine to form an educational framework perfect for COA’s interdisciplinary system, and she is looking forward to taking a deep dive into the life of a writing educator at COA.
“I wanted to work at a small school where I could be supported, because the research that I do and the way that I teach, it’s all transdisciplinary. Most schools have departments, and I didn’t really fit into that model of teaching and doing academic work… I kept saying, I need to find a small school where I can do the work that I want to do as a teacher,” she said, “and I finally found this place where everyone is on board with that idea of thinking about the connections between different areas of inquiry.”
Khor grew up in Sweden, where she attended Uppsala University as an undergraduate and stayed on for her graduate work. She holds a BA in history with minors in American studies and Japanese. For her MEd, she studied English and history education with the intention of becoming a high school teacher.
“I found that I really enjoyed working with older students so I thought that working with college students would suit me better,” she said.
Khor’s views on writing and composition changed with her acceptance into the English master’s program at Penn State, where she specialized in applied linguistics and teaching English as a second or foreign language (TESOL). “I was introduced to contemporary perspectives on teaching writing that went beyond grammar, and instead contextualized writing in our social worlds and how they intersect with our writing and literacy development,” she said. Her master’s thesis was an analysis of several memoirs written by South Asian authors that highlighted the intersections of identities, multilingualism, and writing.
Khor’s teaching at COA will include skills and concepts that “not only address the micro-level aspects of writing but contextualize them in our social worlds and examine how language, identities, and social issues intersect and shape the way we write.”
When it comes to her pedagogical approach, Khor said, “I see myself more as a facilitator, rather than someone who says, Hey, I’m going to teach all these things, and I have all the information.” Her role as an educator does not preclude her from learning, she said, and she actively encourages students sharing information, stories, and conversation during class.
“Of course, I present factual information about writing. But then we have very deep discussions about what that means, such as different beliefs and ideas that people have and how that complicates writing in the classroom and elsewhere,” she said. “It’s interesting to see how other students learn from each other as well. It really is a community of learning.”
Khor is active on the research front, and has co-authored a book titled The Practical Nature of L2 Teaching: A Conversation Analytic Perspective (Routledge, 2023). She has also written several book chapters, which range from topics such as “Multimodality and writing for international multilingual students: Connecting theory and practice” (Multimodal composition: Faculty development programs and institutional change, Routledge, 2021) and “A collaborative multimodal autoethnography: Women leaders in TESOL (Reimagining influence in TESOL: Deconstructing female leadership identity, forthcoming).
In her free time, Khor enjoys baking, reading mystery novels, and spending time outside. She is enjoying her transition to COA.
“I’m so happy,” she beamed. “I love coming to work. I love just being in this environment. I feel really inspired. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of things to do, but I feel good about working through all these things with my students and my colleagues. It’s wonderful, and I feel really, really supported, so I truly am excited to be here. I finally feel at home, you know, and it’s been a long journey.”
