Rate My Professor Kwangok Song

Kwangok Song is an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at the University of Kansas, where she joined the faculty in the fall of 2017. She earned an MA and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Texas at Austin in 2012, specializing in language and literacy studies. Song's research examines sociocultural factors and sociocognitive aspects of literacy and learning, with a focus on emergent bilingual students' language use and literacy practices in and out-of-school contexts. Her key interests encompass bilingual and biliteracy practices, out-of-school literacy, digital literacy, classroom discussions, online discussions, and discourse analysis. She utilizes qualitative methods, including discourse analysis and ethnographic approaches. At KU, Song teaches undergraduate literacy methods courses for elementary grades, as well as literacy assessment and theories of reading.

Song has published extensively on translanguaging, biliteracy, and digital literacies. Selected publications include Song, K., & Cho, B.-Y. (2019). Translanguaging as a (Meta)Cognitive Tool for Navigating and Learning in the Online Environment. In R. Rish & D. Pyles (Eds.), Negotiating Place and Space Through Digital Literacies (pp. 77–94); Song, K., & Cho, B.-Y. (2018). Exploring bilingual adolescents’ translanguaging strategies during online reading. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism; Song, K. (2016). "Okay, I’ll say it in Korean and then American”: Children’s translanguaging practices in bilingual homes. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 16(1), 84–106; and Song, K. (2016). Nurturing children’s biliteracy development: A Korean immigrant family’s hybrid literacy practices at home. Language Arts, 93(5), 341–353. She participated in the Literacy Research Association Scholars of Color Transitioning into Academic Research (STAR) mentoring program from 2013 to 2015 and secured funding for the grant Toward an Understanding of Civic Engagement in Bilingual and Biliteracy Education: Community-Based Heritage Language Schools in the United States (2018). Song co-chairs Area 8 (Literacy Learning and Practice in Multilingual and Multicultural Settings) at the Literacy Research Association.