Reading Music, Reading Literature

My friend Brian is back from Japan.  He’s a music teacher, about to begin work at a new school on Long Island.  Last night, he and I began comparing the teaching of music with the teaching of English.  I shared with Brian my concerns around reading in my own English classroom–how a teacher can never actually know if a student has read a given assignment.  My argument goes as such: reading is a purely internal act, and while teachers can indeed give students quizzes about a reading or ask them to produce an essay about a reading, these assessments can be completed successfully even if a student didn’t read.  What teachers often assess isn’t a student’s reading; they are assessing students ability to produce something not necessarily related to the act of reading at all.  Literary works, for example, are layered, nuanced, and subject to myriad interpretations.  Any type of reading assessment will fall way short.