Mandarin lessons are taught at several different levels. The beginners's stage focuses on Pinyin, and basic conversation skills. Intermediate level focus on grammar, vocabulary expansion, sentence construction and hearing comprehension. Advanced students have the options to choose one or more subjects as theme or continue in-depth study of the language. HSK is also a popular path as it provides a very structured, detailed study program for students.
 
Character reading and writing is optional, it is very common that students learn character writing at the beginners' stage but it can be modified for any level. Students have the option to choose either Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese for the reading and writing aspect.  The learning texts we use in Mandarin is a combination of several different books. Don't worry, print outs will be provided at each lesson.

Currently there are multiple textbooks that I use for Mandarin lessons, some of them are Beginners Chinese(mainly conversation), NOET (Chinese Characters), Magic Chinese(Chinese characters), Chinese Made Easy(Traditional Chinese), HSK textbooks, etc.  There are tons of resources available for learning Chinese, I often use a combination of multiple textbooks as well as my own materials to tailor the lessons to suit your needs.  You don't need to buy any textbooks because I will curate the materials for you.