Girl Talk Assignments

So a few months ago, I was using StumbleUpon to literally stumble around the Internet when I came across a website called SoundCloud.com, where users can post their own mashups of songs for others to vote on. I listened for a bit, found a few new running songs, and then for some reason, I started to wonder how I could use the website to make an assignment for English 1000.

I know I'm not the first person to want to use music in a composition class. I think it takes away some of student's fear about writing...if they're writing about music, how could it be scary? So I'd like to take this idea and run with it. Rather than use SoundCloud, which can be unpredictable as far as what music is available, I decided to use Girl Talk because I know more of the DJ's personal history and could use it for the assignment.

So in theory, my assignment would involve a few parts. The first one involving a class period wherein we listen to a Girl Talk song, and discuss our initial reactions to it. Do the students like it? Why or why not? Then I would give a brief summary of how Gregg Gillis, the sole member of Girl Talk, uses the fair use rule to sample songs without being sued for infringement. I think this can create (hopefully) an interesting conversation when I ask the students the next question, which will be the focus of a persuasive paper: Is this art?

I think I'd first start out with this as a persuasive paper, given fairly early in the semester to help students get over their fear of writing. I'd like to stick with my idea that giving students creative assignments such as this  will yield to more engaged writing. The problem is that it's so subjective. I have no idea what my students will think, so I would most likely have to wait to feel out the class to see if this is an assignment that would be interesting.