At the beginning of my Intro to Journalism course, we talk about the history of the field. One cool resource to do that with is the Google News Archives, which has archived thousands of publications dating back hundreds of years. You can see articles as they were they day they were published. It's a much more modern take on what we would have used microfilm for.

I have students research three of those publications and find articles of interest to them. We then use that to fuel discussion of what used to be considered news. This assignment would also work great in any civics course. The kids enjoy the novelty of it and it's perfect for distance learning!