摘要：Ithoughtitwasserendipitous that Iwas listening to Johnny Cash’s “Legend of John Henry’s Hammer” when Ireceived a copy of Machine Scoring of Student Essays: Truth and Consequences, edited by Patricia Freitag Ericsson and Richard H. Haswell. As Iskimmed the book’s table of contents and glanced at random pages, Ithought about the parallels between Henry’s story and that of writing teachers. Certainly the comparison breaks down on many levels: for example, Idon’t imagine English teachers’ hearts giving out from working so hard. But, the obvious comparison of “man vs. machine” proves accurate.
