Fourth grade students in Lori Cobb’s and Mackenzie Zuech’s classes at Love Elementary School are bringing their ideas to life through the Chautauqua Institution’s Young Playwrights Project, a program designed to help students explore storytelling, writing and performance in a meaningful way.

Fourth grade students in Lori Cobb’s and Mackenzie Zuech’s classes at Love Elementary School are bringing their ideas to life through the Chautauqua Institution’s Young Playwrights Project, a program designed to help students explore storytelling, writing and performance in a meaningful way.

The three-phase program connects students with actors and teaching artists who guide them through the art of playwriting. Along the way, students develop their own original plays, hear them read aloud and, for selected works, see them performed live at Chautauqua Institution.

In the classroom, the project aligns closely with the district’s curriculum, reinforcing key literacy skills while encouraging creativity and self-expression.

“YPP is a wonderfully integrative curriculum for our fourth graders,” said Lori Cobb, a fourth grade teacher at Love Elementary School. “Our new reading series by HMH aligns beautifully in the lesson constructions and provide many techniques for writing.”

Students build foundational skills in areas such as visualization, theme, plot, character, literary elements, poetry, drama and figurative language before beginning the playwriting process.

“Essentially our curriculum provides all the background skills and tools and mostly inspiration to be creative,” Cobb said. “Then their plays are independently written and come exclusively from them: the playwright.”

“The Young Playwrights Project combines the best of in-person learning experiences and asynchronous digital resources in integrating theater and English Language Arts education,” said Suzanne Fassett-Wright, director of Arts Education at Chautauqua Institution.

“We’re thrilled that the Young Playwrights Project supports JPS’s new ELA curriculum. Our goal is to be in constant conversation with Chautauqua County schools to hear what they need and to provide resources to support them through arts-integrated learning.”

Cobb said the level of engagement and excitement among students has been remarkable.

“To watch the students be so incredibly motivated and excited about writing and the use of language specifically at such a sophisticated level is amazing,” she said.

An important part of the experience comes when students hear their work brought to life by performers and readers.

“The performers and readers give such life and perfection to the students’ work that it is just a wonder to experience,” Cobb said.

The program culminates with a visit to Chautauqua Institution, where students can see selected plays performed — an experience Cobb said leaves a lasting impact.

“This experience alone will have an indelible and lasting imprint,” she said. “When the students see the plays performed at that venue it has a huge impact and the excitement is palpable.”

Back in the classroom, the impact is just as meaningful, as students support and celebrate one another throughout the process.

“The emotional experience is pure pride: pride from the teacher for the students, pride from one classmate to another,” Cobb said. “The amount of encouragement they each give to each other and the hope for a classmates’ work to be chosen, and the compliments they pay each other after the readings, is life fulfilling for any teacher.”

Ultimately, Cobb said the program helps students recognize the power of their own creativity and voice.

“We can hope the kids take away the impact that art, and their art specifically, can have on one’s life and one’s identity,” she said. “To see art move them and then see them move others with their work as a playwright is more than fulfilling to experience.”