Ellsworth, The Dialogic, Past and Present

"They are, first, that the space of difference between address and response is a social space, formed and informed by historical conjunctures of power and of social cultural difference."

Elizabeth Ellsworth noteworthy text Teaching Positions: Difference, Pedagogy and The Power of Address brings to the light the disparity in the classroom between teacher and student, what is taught and what is learned, what is heard and what is not heard. To try to figure this out Ellsworth uses a critical film theory paradigm of who is being addressed in by the film the audience is watching and "who does this film think you are?"

Ellsworth describes how this theortical basis is used to investigate how film makers adjust what they are making by trying to figure out who their audience is. Are they white, black, latino, urban, suburban, etc? She mentions that this is important for people are interested in social change because if you figure out the space inbetween "you might be able to change or influence, control, even, a spectator's response by designing a film in particular way."

Much of this resonates strongly with me about the current debate about what literacy is today and how we as educators should approach it from pedagogical perspective. Since, say, you have a teacher who was raised with traditional notions of literacy in front of a classroom of young people, who have been raised with multimodal forms of literacy (film, television, the internet video games) a space is going to arise that is formed out historical circumstances.

When reading Ellsworth I also couldn't help to think of the Bahktin's idea of the dialogic, especially within the context of watching films or videos. In literary theory as I remember it the dialogic is the unspoken dialog between the past and present, also between humans. When you read between these lines you are able to find some truth within the text that is created. All of the external historical and social factors play into the development of the dialogic and is never static. A quote from Ellsworth:

"What I'm saying other words, is that the paradoxical power of address consists in the difference between all the other lines that could have have been spoken and have been spken in other movies, soap operas, news stories, romance novels, sitcoms and the one that got spoken here."(p.40)

The dialog going on between teacher and student informs us about where education has been and where it is in the present. It also unconsciously informs us on how to approach our practice. It helps educators expose the historical, cultural and class differences that make up the dialog in the classroom and society in general.

As educators it's the challenge to try to be conscious of the "space inbetween" that tricky intersect of disconnect, to try to reach our students.