Essentially though, I just run through a worksheet that did:
- multiple commands on the command line separated by ';'
 (copy a file to a .bak then edit the original one)
- how to make use of back-ticks or $( .. ) and pipes
- more sophisticated command line
 ( copy file to $( date +%F ).bak then edit original)
- put those commands in a file (without a shebang) and run it with (ba)sh
- introduce the #!
- use of read and echo
- run through a few controls .. for (both versions), if, and while.
- use of special variables most common being $?, $#

Beyond that I just referred the class to http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/ which I think is just great for going into some fair amount of detail.