Joao Boavida wrote:

In case it is of interest for whoever runs the session [next year],
this is what I did:

* I did not attempt to cram a lot of material into the session, because I 
don't believe anyone remembers it anyway

* I first explained briefly the LaTeX syntax, starting with a minimal 
"Hello world" example, and using it to explain about \, { }, [ ], \begin 
and \end, simple math notation, things like `` and '', or ---

* I gave them two handouts (http://latex.silmaril.ie/veryshortguide/ and 
http://www.stdout.org/~winston/latex/ , but I still have lots of 
leftovers)

* I mentioned some (known or not so much) resources: www.tug.org , 
www.ctan.org (I may have spend some time showing the sort of stuff one 
finds in the info folder) and http://www.tug.org/pracjourn/ (The PracTeX 
Journal, virtually unknown, but will lots of useful information written by 
beginners for beginners)

* Then I asked them to try to write up a simple document on their own

* After that I showed them a more complicated document (some recent 
paper by Oksendal on applications of stochastic calculus), and helped them 
go through how to type a complicated formula (this exercise consumed more 
than half the session, because different people come across different 
difficulties when trying to make it run).

And I think this was all that we did.  I tried hard not to tell them how 
to do hard stuff, but rather merely let them know it was available when 
they wanted to look it up.  The focus was on the hands-on part.