The Barrier: ELL Students, language, and community (2015)

Undergraduate: EmmaLee Kantner

Faculty Advisor: Patrick Akos
Department: English & Comparative Literature

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The purpose of this project is to expose the personal lived realities of ELL students in the American Public School system using the narrative lens of documentary filmmaking. Compared against the background of previously existing research studies, this project follows the academic and social journey of on ELL 4th grader in a North Carolina Public school and, by harnessing the rhetorical power of his narrative, seeks to disrupt preconceived notions about members of the ELL population¿¿¿s daily experience. The documentary and corresponding paper hope to enlighten the audience regarding the unique needs, both academic and socio-emotional, of individual ELL students.