Establish classroom rules specific to a positive learning environment. Ask students to brainstorm various things that make their middle school classroom a successful place to learn. Ideas might include not talking during silent reading or cleaning up materials after use. Make a list of the students' ideas and combine them to formulate concise rules for your classroom.
Write a few classroom rules that specifically address respect in the classroom. Respect includes interactions with peers, teachers and guests. Rules should state that students need to accept views that may differ from their own. Also, raising a hand before speaking or not interrupting students during peer work or presentations are important ideas that lead to respect of classmates. Bullying can be an issue with middle school students, so establish a zero-tolerance policy for this problem.
Compare the rules your middle school class develops with school rules. Be sure that none of your rules contradict any that the school or district has set forth. Also, add any rules from this list that students did not address in your list. Make the needed changes before posting these on a large poster in your classroom. Invite students to help you do this, as reviewing the rules helps reinforce them.
Include specific consequences as part of your middle school classroom rules. Students need to be aware of what will happen if they choose to break a previously established classroom rule. While the goal of setting clear classroom rules is to avoid this, perfect behavior is unrealstiic. When a student breaks a rule, it is important to have a pre-establshed consequence so that crucial learning time is not wasted dealing with that given incident. For example, if a student disrespects another, the consequence may be an apology letter.