id+

Wenger's discussion of identity used several examples that I would have used, making it more understandable.  Identification with one community does not necessarily have a bearing on one's identification with other communities, though it could.  In the New York area, people are typically fans of the Yankees and Giants or the Mets and the Jets, however they can have all different religious affiliations.The issue of imagination is one that comes up in several contexts.  In the story of the stonecutters, one of them sees his work as part of something greater while the other sees his work as something great.  Contextualization provides insight into one's perspective.  There are plenty of unsuspected possibilities looming on the horizon,  That is both comforting and disconcerting.  We have dreams and visions of what our lives will be.  It is nice to know that such dreams can be exceeded, but we have to accept the possibility that things could go horribly awry. 
In a classroom context, teachers seek to engage students, but can
benefit from some disengagement of their own by imagining themselves in
the position of their students from time to time.Concerning alignment, we do what it takes to play our parts.  Wenger states that there is directing and controlling of energy.  When he writes about alignment creating communities and cites circumstances that create strange bedfellows, I immediately thought of something I often say, "there is no greater uniting force than a common enemy."  This is an approach some teachers dare to take in an effort to get their classes to come together. Our identities are socially organized and dynamic, allowing us to invest energy to work to improve them.  Web 2.0 technologies permit us to "create wider, more complex, and more diversified economies of meaning and communities" and expand our identities.  Hopefully such a spread can help dispel stereotypes, which when combined with imagination can prevent a great deal of progress from being made.