Ideally, the issues selected would also be ones about which students might have some actual power to influence.  For example, The What Kids Can Do site provides examples of student-led activism (http://www.whatkidscando.org).  As reported on this site, students in Des Moines, Iowa, challenged the city code that music venues are not allowed to hold all-ages music events after 9 p.m.).  

This issue could also be based on reading a common fictional text portraying an issue or related to an “actual” issue.  For example, as reported in The Los Angeles Times, a forum was organized around whether Hamlet should/ should not be tried for murder because he was/was not insane

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/02/to-be-sane-or-not-to-be-sane-for-hamlet-a-question-still-unanswered.html  (One advantage of using a common literary text is that students all bring a relatively shared knowledge base to their writing; students could also adopt roles based on characters in the novel who have different perspectives on the issue).