William Shakespeare meets Tracy Chapman

I have been given my first English lesson assignment. I'll be teaching three classes this Friday:

1. 3rd grade = 13-year-olds
2. 5th grade = 15-year-olds
3. 8th grade = 18-year-olds

13-year-olds
The students will form groups and write as many questions as possible to ask me in an interview. I will answer everyone's questions and the group with the greatest number of correctly written questions wins a prize.

15-year-olds
The teacher told me to pick a "controversial" song about America and/or race. I chose Tracy Chapman's "Across the Lines". I will give the students a worksheet with the lyrics and blanks to fill in. Then we will discuss the text. I'm interested in hearing their perspectives on race and if they think racism is any different in the US than it is in Austria.

18-year-olds
I was originally told to discuss Macbeth, as in "one-two-three: discuss Macbeth!" Luckily, the English teacher had second thoughts about the magnitude of this request and instead asked me to talk about how Shakespeare is taught in American schools. Do students read the plays aloud? Do they act out the scenes? Do they learn the American history of the time? Do they learn the British history? Is Elizabethan English difficult for American students to understand?

Each of these lessons are actually "mini-lessons" of about 20 minutes each within 50-minute class periods. So in an hour, I get to talk about myself, teach about one of my favorite singer-songwriters, and talk about my 9th-grade English class. And that's all in English! I think I can do this ... we'll find out for sure on Friday.