Getting teens to listen, and write, in English

I very much liked one of the many suggestions Usoa Sol made in her talk, Listen up! Getting teens to listen in English, given at the IH Barcelona ELT Conference -- getting kids to write emails from the protagonists of the song.

Usoa suggested Dido's Thank You, though I wonder if it's got a strong enough storyline and whether or not it tells us enough that we can interpret about the characters. Perhaps White Flag might work better, partly because you've got a YouTube videoclip there that appears to add something to the story.

I'm showing my age here, I guess, but one I'd really go for would be Springsteen's Johnny 99 (video above), which has a more powerful, more obvious story in it, I think.

Neat idea -- and so much better and richer than just another gap-filled song. You could then get your teens to respond to each other's mails...