ECC Students Bring Second Graders' Stories to Life on Stage

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Laughter and loud noises from second-grade students filled the Spartan Auditorium as Elgin Community College students brought second-graders’ stories to life on stage earlier this month.

Approximately 80 second-grade students from McKinley Elementary School in District U-46 visited ECC on May 5 to watch their original stories come to life in live performances.

The young authors saw their ideas, ranging from celebrating birthday parties, traveling to Disney, characters being transformed into dogs, and going across the country, take center stage.  

ECC students created four performances based on 21 selected stories from a pool of about 80 submissions. 

In a highlight moment, the second grader who wrote a story on his cat’s birthday party was invited on stage as the audience of parents and teachers joined in singing “Happy Birthday” to the cat in Spanish.

Other performances included a trip to Disney World with Disney trivia and a ride on Space Mountain, sock puppets turning into animals with help from Dory from the film “Finding Nemo,” and bears exploring the country and searching for adventure. One student, Julia “Ash” Bernardo Navarro, spoke a line of Spanish at one point during the performance on the journey of “Bear Bear.”

“It's such a cute assignment,” said Veronica Stefanescu, an ECC student who performed with sock puppets. “It’s really exciting to do something with them because they have such a big imagination.”

After the performances, ECC students introduced themselves and spoke with the second graders about their stories and what college is like. ECC student Deanna Tubekis said her favorite part of reading the McKinley student stories was learning more about them, and “going inside their minds and lives.” 

ECC student Brooke Holstrom described college as “fun,” sharing that her grandfather used to teach math at ECC, and that both of her parents attended ECC. Bernardo Navarro reflected on her experience as an international student from Brazil. While she was initially nervous, she said getting involved on campus helped her build friendships and feel at home. 

“I think what Ash said is really important because raise your hand if you were a little nervous on the first day of school,” communication studies instructor Brian Bohr told the group. “It's exciting, and you’re nervous. You want it to go well. Those are really important feelings. It's important to find your people who you get along with and who are kind and nice, and to be one of those kind and nice and fun people to be around.”

The performance is part of Bohr’s Oral Interpretation of Literature course, where students transform written works such as fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and personal essays into live performances. 

What began as an idea during Bohr’s interview for his role at ECC has become a hands-on learning experience for students. His vision became reality through a connection with McKinley Elementary, where second-grade students write original stories that are shared with ECC students to interpret and perform. 

“Some of them are like, 'I was playing Roblox with Anthony, and I fell and screamed,' or 'My great-grandma died…,’ Bohr said. “You get a pretty wide variety. Sometimes, we get stories in Spanish, and if I have Spanish-speaking students, they will translate them.”

Now in its fourth year, the project continues to give ECC students a creative, real-world performance experience while showing young students that their voices and their stories matter.