One of the best ways to spark a reading discussion is to choose a topic that students are interested in. Writing that students can understand or something that has contemporary relevance almost always gets students excited and talking. However, teachers don't always get to decide what materials that students read, and classics like Shakespeare might be difficult for students to automatically connect with. However, creative instructors can find ways to get students to relate to any material. For example, a teacher could start a discussion of "Romeo and Juliet" by showing clips from a movie like "West Side Story," or Baz Lurhmann's adaptation, "Romeo + Juliet."
If students don't carefully read the material, then there's little hope that they'll participate enthusiastically in a discussion about it. Thus, teachers should employ every strategy they can to encourage students to read the material thoroughly ahead of time. On the day that you're planning to have a reading discussion, consider having a scheduled quiz on the material, so that students will feel further inclined to read ahead of time. Or, if quizzing isn't your style, you could also have students read the most important parts aloud in class, ensuring that each students knows what's going on in the story so that they can comment on it.
The last step before beginning a reading discussion involves encouraging each student to critically process the material. If there's a certain section of the story or a certain direction you'd like the discussion to go in, you could pose a question involving this theme at the beginning of the class. Have students write down a brief response with the material in mind. Then, you can pose the question aloud to the class and have students read or summarize responses, thereby facilitating a discussion based on what students think about it. If you're more free-flow in the way that you want students to digest the information, instead have students free-write or even illustrate some responses to the material. This way, you're leaving the discussion more open-ended and could get some interesting insights into how students naturally respond to the material.
Once students have taken each preparatory step, then they should feel excited to join in any discussion. If students are still having a hard time, however, you can employ certain strategies to get the ball rolling. Have self-conscious students split up into small groups and present thoughts on the reading as a team. Find any potentially-controversial themes or parts to the story, and pose questions regarding these themes when the conversation starts to slow. Have an enthusiastic student lead the discussion to get students to relate more easily each other. Whatever you do, the most important thing is that you create a classroom environment that encourages thought and that welcomes all voices in the discussion. If a certain student is negatively impacting the discussion or ridiculing the responses of others, ask him to change his attitude or to leave.