Tori Jensen wrote me with a question, and I asked her if I could respond here for other's benefit as well.
Tori asked: I would like to try a similar project with my high school students and staff. "Why do you read what you read?" I would be connected to a grant I won to encourage boys to read. Would you be opposed? I certainly would give you credit and link to your site if you Thank you, Tori Jensen, media specialist>>
My response:
I usually suggest that people ask "wdydwyd?" b/c it's broad enough to encompass any specific "doing" such as reading. For example, Google did it with some of their execs, and they initially wanted to ask "Why do you work at Google?" But, they asked "wdydwyd?" instead, and the context of asking employees provided the specific angle of "working at Google." Similarly, another group wanted to ask "Why do you live in San Francisco?" But, the context of asking locals the broader question worked perfectly.
One benefit is that people can plug into a larger project, which is a nice incentive b/c people like to be heard and seen. Also, the diversity of responses has collective value when you take different things people do, different types of people, etc.
That said, I'd be willing to do a little experiment with you if you're willing. What do you think about asking your students to answer, "why do you read what you read?" but then you'd present under the frame of "why do you do what you do?" I'm guessing that the answers would fit well in both, but we'd have to see from the results. Then, I could include them on the site if you uploaded them. It think it could be pretty cool. One value that this site has is that by answering the question personally, people inspire thousands of others to reflect on the answers. There is value in the process of answering the question for yourself, but if a tree falls in a forrest and no one hears it... The broader ripple effect of sharing your students' answers on this site is one impact which you could claim in the results of your grant.