A few comments on some possible subjects for student presentations: Restoration and Eighteenth Century
Samuel Pepys was not a literary artist, but his diary provides an up-close look at the great fire of London and Pepys' rather creepy sex life. (Possible focus: comparison of Pepys' sexual attitudes with those of Rochester.)
John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is famous and IMHO replusive. (Possible focus: analysis of the appeal of Pilgrim's Progress to Dissenters. You would need to do some research on Dissenters.)
Sir Isaac Newton's letter describing an experiment in optics is a techie's delight. (Possible focus: Is Newton's experiment a good example of Scientific Method?)
Aphra Behn's Oroonoko, or The Royal Slave, a blend of fact and fiction, was influential in changing attitudes about slavery. (Possible focus: Is Behn racist?)
The selection from Daniel Defoe's Roxana is readable and radical. (Possible focus: What is Roxana's fundamental assumption about the nature of marriage?)
For me, the last chapter of Swift's Gulliver's Travels, "A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms," is the most interesting of the book. (Possible focus: Does Swift satirize rationality as well as irrationality?)
Eliza Haywood's "Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze" is a lively take-down of male promiscuity. (Possible focus: Are there any similarities to Behn's "The Disappointment"?)
The title of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's "The Lover: A Ballad," makes you expect what you don't get. (Possible focus: Have things changed since Montagu's time?)
William Hogarth's Marriage A-la-Mode, a story in pictures, is an excellent topic for a slide-show type of presentation. (Possible focus: Does this story have the same appeal as the TV show, "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?")
A History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, by Samuel Johnson, has none of the qualities that we expect in page-turner, but I kept turning the pages. (Possible focus: Is there a solution to the problem that Johnson presents?)
Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" appeals to me because I believe I have personally known people such as some Gray describes, whose capabilities were foiled by their circumstances. (Possible focus: What sort of Churchyard is Gray thinking of, and why is it an appropriate setting for his reflections?)
"The Castaway," by Cowper (who is more Romantic than Rational) is mentioned as a touchstone of sensibility in Austen's Sense and Sensibility. (Possible focus: Is the poem overly sentimental?)