Teaching text through music videos

Just handed in my teaching material for teaching text, signifiers/signified, and gender roles in visual media. Now I'm looking forward to doing my 20 minutes of teaching on the text.
I'm really excited about the idea of teaching text and representation through music videos. I couldn't imagine a more relevant and authentic material for the upper secondary pupils. MTV and music being a major part of their lives.

I tried to post the material to this blog, but I couldn't find out how to, so here are the headlines:

- The Hollywood Model
Apply Justin Bieber's music video "Baby feat. Ludacris" to the Hollywood Model

- Focus on hidden advertising
Notice display of labels in the video
Why do you think they use hidden advertising?
How do you think it affects what you buy?

- Focus on gender roles in the video
Do you see any similarities to "modern" gender roles?
Does the dance battle remind you of some kind of "ancient" gender roles?
Why do you think that King Kong is shown at the beginning and at the end of the video?

Learning outcome for teacher and pupils could e.g. be:

- To show that instead of using a whole movie you might use a music video to teach film and observation on texts.

- If you have a limited number of lessons for this subject I find music videos relevant to work with. They are short and easily handled in a few lessons.

- Films are a big mouthful to start with for the less experienced pupils. Movies are filled with signifiers and signified and demand a good portion of background knowledge before working qualified with the text.

- Music videos are authentic material for the children to work with. MTV is an integrated part of the pupil’s lives and I find it relevant to teach them critical observation.

- To teach them to be observant when they watch music videos and to be aware of various signs that might affect the forming of their choice as consumers.

- Critical analysis of visual input.

- Awareness of representation of gender roles in the visual media and on the influence it has on forming of the young people’s identity.

....and now on to the essay...