twim19

The whole "Shakespeare didn't write his own stuff" theory came about from someone trying like hell to figure out what to write their dissertation on. It's a stupid theory that sounds legit enough and feeds the human need to see conspiracies in everything.

Do people ever act surprised that a waitress at a 'breastaurant" (btw, I've never heard that term until today and think it's golden!) is conversant in Shakespeare?

And what's your favorite play/sonnet?

Did you know you were going to be a janitor when you applied/accepted?

Is the purpose of the program to get people a start in potential careers at Disney?

True, though reading your description, I think Gee's concept of the Discourse Community could be relevant as well. You note that their engagement stems from a sense of community, but what are the traits of community. I imagine these students, through their common gaming experience, have adopted a discourse of gamers which has it's own rules and expectations. The club helps reinforce those rules by giving students a place to practice and further refine these gamer discourses, thus strengthening the sense of community.

Gee's work on video games struck me as similar for this reason--yes, he points out that games seem to spur kids to feats of literacy we may otherwise think them incapable of, but I think at the heart of his argument is that the reason this happens is because gaming becomes it's own form of community cemented together by a common discourse. The engagement comes from the sense of belonging to this community and belonging is signified via the student's discourse.

Which case? Might be different for us since we use school security deputies which are paid with police funds.

You drawing at all from the work of Gee?