The first class will start with a presentation of the basics of a journalistic story and what is the difference between news and opinion. I will explain the inverted pyramid way of organizing a story. We start with the lead sentence and why that is the most important part of the story. I will show them what the six basic lead sentences are. We then move to the basics of a story; the who, what, where, etc.). I then give them a list of facts of a made-up story and have them come up with the lead sentence. Then we go into how to construct the next two paragraphs, which will supply the major details of a story. There will be practice and discussion. Homework will involve students selecting an event in their home, neighborhood or school to report on and coming up with a good lead sentence and second paragraph
The second lesson will fine-tune the way students write. We'll first review the events the students reported on and come up with suggestions and comments. The lesson will concentrate on strong, active verbs and descriptive adjectives in one's writing. There will be a short class exercise on how to describe peanut butter without using the words 'peanut' or 'butter' to help students think out of the box. I will introduce a thesaurus and give them a homework assignment to write an essay using unusual names for color, ie azure instead of blue; lemon instead of yellow. If they are not already journaling, I will tell them to start writing something every day. 
The third lesson will have to do with interviewing. How do you ask questions that get real information? How do you check to make sure you are accurate? What are the basic questions you must ask? What is the most important thing about your interviewee (hint - it has to do with spelling their name right)? Homework will include an assignment to 'interview' a family member or neighbor. 
Our last lesson will go over how to do headlines and how to best to end a story. If there is time, I'd like to introduce students to the different kinds of reporting out there, such as sports, politics, feature writing, travel, religion, entertainment, local government, business, health and so on. Students will be encouraged to find outlets that carry news that correspond to their interests and start following writers who cover those beats. 
Classes will be chock-full of content and ideas that students can take with them. At the end of the class, students should be able to assemble a one-page family newspaper by coming up with the headlines and writing a simple article.