Six members of the Committee for the Assessment of Student Learning will decide the future of the Electronic Writing Portfolio’s remedial portion, the committee decided Tuesday.

Students whose first two EWP submissions are deemed unsatisfactory by faculty reviewers may be required to take a diagnostic writing test and a remedial writing program.

The six CASL members were formed into a subcommittee at CASL’s first meeting of the year Tuesday.

“We’ve heard from faculty that they didn’t want students out there who needed writing help,” said CASL member Karla Sanders. “We have to determine what we’ll do to help them.”

Other committee members said that level of help is not available to students.

“There are (writing) resources, but they’re pretty limited,” said CASL member Mary Herrington-Perry.

Other members said changes to EWP mean students who submit two inadequate writing samples need more intensive writing help than other students, since students can choose samples from any class.

“The new EWP doesn’t require them to come from a particular class,” Sanders said. “That was to encourage them to submit their best work.”

Sanders said a group of 12 faculty met last spring to decide how to test those whose writing still needed improvement.

“They had initially proposed a standardized test for those who failed two (submissions) a diagnostic for those who will help these students,” Sanders said.

While agreeing on the need to test those students, faculty members had opposed a standardized writing test.

“There was resistance to anything like a writing-competency test,” said CASL Chair Rebecca Throneburg.

To decide what form testing and a remedial program will take, the six-member subcommittee will work with the English Department and Writing Across the Curriculum in the coming weeks, Throneburg said.

Joe Astrouski can be reached at 581-7942 or at jmastrouksi@eiu.edu.