ABSTRACT
Automated scoring systems are being used for placement, for program assessment, and for classroom instruction, and there are four or five well-established and aggressively promoted systems on the market. This chapter suggests that rhetorical agency is exactly what is at stake in automated assessment. It explores the action and agentive capacity of the writer or speaker in the context of the presumably agentless motion of the mechanized audience. The chapter explores how the resistance to automated assessment can inform the current debate about the nature of rhetorical agency. Interaction is necessary for agency because it is what creates the kinetic energy of performance and puts it to rhetorical use. Agency is the property of a relationship between rhetor and audience. A recent review of performance theory notes its roots in both psychoanalytic theory and social theory and its association with "consciousness and reflection" as well as with a theatrical focus on audience reception.
