CLASSROOM RULES IN ONE WORD

      I am embarrassed by how I handled classroom rules at the beginning of the year when I first started teaching. Yet, like life, I learned from my mistakes and refined my rules through the years. I have done everything from lecture about the rules for 45 minutes (bury  me now!) to having students read my rules (it's a reading class, correct?) and giving them a test over the reading that we would go over as a class (a little better, but still terrible!).

      I finally landed on one thing that I did as long as I was in the classroom that proved very successful. I reduced my rules to one word: RESPECT. Respect for yourself, others, and property. It seemed all my rules fell within one of these categories of respect, and you could see the relief on the faces of my students when they realized they didn't have to sit through another classroom rules lecture! We then moved on to a fun and engaging reading/writing assignment and they went home thinking, "I just might enjoy my English class this year!"

      How about you? What have you found that really helps with sharing classroom rules at the beginning of the year with secondary students?