ASSIGNMENT SHEET FOR THE ANALYSIS ESSAY
(15% of course grade)
For this 2-3 page essay assignment, you will write an analysis of a music video. 
You should choose an official music video for a particular artist and song. Your video can be old or new.  It should not be a fan video or a live performance. Instead, it should be the video created by the artist to market the song.  YouTube is a great place to find official music videos.
Then, you should decide on a single, overall message the video is communicating. This message might be about the artist, or it might be about something larger (like society or the music industry).  What does the video communicate about the artist’s image?  What does it communicate about life or the world?  Choose one message, and organize your entire essay around “proving” this idea.
Organize your ideas into a five-paragraph essay.  Your thesis statement should make a claim about the video’s central message, and each body paragraph should look at a different set of details from the video that support this claim.  You will need to describe parts of the video in your essay, and you will also need to interpret these details so they clearly relate to your main idea.
This is a formal essay, which means you should not use “I” or “you.”  Instead, use 3rd person point of view (“the video shows” etc).