"I've just been talking to students about what they were interested in writing about and what they told me was not what I expected them to tell me. I was surprised at a lot of what they said - it wasn't what I predicted. It wasn't that the women were all interested in this, and the men were all interested in that. It wasn't like that at all.

I had never asked the students, "Okay what do you want to read about?" Which sounds really awful when you think about it. It should have been something I've been doing for years. But I always took it upon myself to " think, "What should I give them, what will they be interested in?"

Now, I think that you always have to ask students: "Okay, we're finished with this, what would you like to do next? Here are some things I've thought of, what about you?" And people will surprise you every time because you think you have a real read on your students. And you don't. They still come up with things you wouldn't have thought they are interested in.

Vicki Noonan, Interview 2