September 13, 2007 -A typical West Virginia Wesleyan education major’s career aspiration is to teach children. However, one Wesleyan student’s passion for children consumes all facets of her life.

Renee Marko is busier than your typical college student. A member of the college’s swim team, Marko is an active member of Alpha Xi Delta sorority, serves as a first-year seminar student leader, and gives private swimming lessons. She also spent the past summer coaching the Buckhannon youth swim team.

“I entered college as a biology major, but I discovered that I enjoyed teaching kids so I switched to education,” says the junior from Latrobe, PA. “I am now double majoring in elementary education and English.”

Marko has integrated these two majors by working on a special project in her free time. “The Short, Scrunchy, Kinda Chubby Caterpillar” is a children’s book written by Marko. The story focuses on a caterpillar and his experiences through his life-cycle.

“I do not want to give away the ending, but he becomes a butterfly,” Marko laughs.

She is currently working on tweaking the story to make it more appealing to children. She plans to add illustrations and other teaching tools. Marko’s goal is to eventually write a whole line of stories which are not only fun for children, but will accompany what they learn in the classroom.

Her next step is to send out the final version to publishers. If she succeeds in finding a publisher, she plans to meet with artists who are interested in illustrating. If the Wesleyan student can attach her name to a famous illustrator, she will have a good chance of making her name famous as well.

Marko plans to pursue the new Master’s in Education in Multi-categorical Special Education degree at Wesleyan. After finding a steady teaching position, she eventually wants to pursue master’s degree in writing. While Marko enjoys writing stories, her main goal is to teach children.

“I have read my story to the children I coach in swimming and they really enjoyed it,” Marko says. “I like writing, but I really loved the satisfaction of teaching these kids through my story.”

WVWC Press Release