This article presents a novel method, the Complex Dynamics Essay Scorer (CDES), for automated essay scoring using complex network features. Texts produced by college students in China were represented as scale‐free networks (e.g., a word adjacency model) from which typical network features, such as the in‐/out‐degrees, clustering coefficient (CC), and dynamic networks, were obtained. The CDES integrates the classical concepts of network feature representation and essay score series variation. Several experiments indicated that the network measures different essay qualities and can be clearly demonstrated to develop complex networks for autoscoring tasks. The average agreement of the CDES and human rater scores was 86.5%, and the average Pearson correlation was .77. The results indicate that the CDES produced functional complex systems and autoscored Chinese essays in a method consistent with human raters. Our research suggests potential applications in other areas of educational assessment.