With higher level students, I find it useful to ask THEM to come up with discussion questions for a news article.
Choose a news article that you think students will find interesting or contentious and have students read and discuss it in groups. Explain that after some discussion, the students will create discussion questions to go along with the article.
Don't give the students any questions to discuss, just ask them to discuss the article generally.
You can wander around and help by asking students guiding questions or hints on where to take the conversation. For example, you might ask some of the following: How does it make them feel? What other things in their lives are connected to it? What makes it interesting? What should be done about the issue?
After some time, give students a slip or two of paper and have them create the best discussion questions that they can come up with. I have offered a prize to the groups that create the top two best questions to help motivate students to really try to come up with good questions.
The questions made by students can then be used with another group, where students read an article and discuss the questions.
I've included the document that I used for students to submit their questions, but this can easily be done with any paper you have about.
