In the 1920s and 1930s, a group of African-American writers based in Harlem, New York, created a large and rich body of literature which dealt with topics such as everyday life among African-Americans, racism in America, and African-American religious and musical traditions. Some well-known writers of the Harlem Renaissance include Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes and Jean Toomer. The student can give a presentation on the important contributions of these writers to the American literary landscape.
If you're teaching Shakespeare in your class, you can have each student choose one of Shakespeare's texts and give a presentation on it. You should instruct the students to discuss the characters' personalities, the complexities of the texts' plots and what these say about the time in which Shakespeare lived. It would also be helpful to discuss the life of William Shakespeare and English society during that time before you assign the presentations.
If you're teaching a Latin American studies class, you can assign each student a book by a well-known Latin American author and have them give a presentation on these books. Some good books to assign include "Ficciones," by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges; "100 Years of Solitude," by Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez; and "Masters and Slaves," by Brazilian writer Gilberto Freyre. Before you assign the books, you should discuss the lives of the authors as well as the social and political climates that influenced the authors.
In the early 20th century, there was a movement in literature called modernism. In modernism, writers featured themes in their works which included mistrust of social institutions, the importance of individualism, the randomness of life, and occasionally pessimism about life. Some popular modernist writers include James Joyce, T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The student can give a presentation on the influence of modernist literature on early 20th century American society and how modernism paved the way for later literary movements.