Teach your students the difference between having a chat and a more formal discussion. Show them how to differentiate between a debate and a discussion. Choose a subject that is in the news, and that is appropriate to the students' stage of development. Ask them to write down a list of possible discussion points around the topic. Discuss how difficult it can be to reduce a complex subject, such as the morality of war, or the nuclear industry, to a discussion title.
Help the students to identify the "Hot Spots" of a discussion. The website for Harvard's Visible Thinking project explains that Hot Spots are what can be seen as true and untrue and important about a particular subject. Ask the students to do this for a series of topics and discuss their Hot Spot choices and the rationale behind them.
Discuss some of the techniques that politicians and others use to avoid identifying issues in a discussion. Explore the various ways a discussion can become derailed, or how people can go off on a tangent. Teach the students how to keep to the point in a discussion, and how to bring others back to the point.
Arrange a discussion and appoint two students to act as observers and adjudicators. Ask them to give constructive and supportive feedback to the group afterwards.