Ch. 9: Effective Classroom Management

Chapter 9 was quite relevant to me in relationship to my own experiences teaching in a classroom.  I have a classroom of 23 students, and a large number of them are rowdy, misbehaving boys.  The case study in Chapter 9 described 3 students- Eli, Jake, and Vanessa, who sound similar to a lot of my students.  They constantly get up and roam around the room, belittle the teacher's assignments, talk out of turn, and intentionally annoy others.
I was surprised to find out that many beginning teachers list classroom management as their number one concern, but it makes sense.  My lead teacher and I spend so much time asking those kids to stop goofing around or get in line, or to pay attention, that we lose a lot of time in the day.  I feel bad for those self-regulating students who sit quietly, ready for the next task.  Those students who behave constantly have to listen to us talking to those that misbehave.  It doesn't seem fair to them at all.
My teacher and I have tried several seating arrangements to nip this problem in the bud, but we haven't had a lot of success.  In Chapter 9 the author suggests sitting problem students in the front of the classroom, which I hadn't previously thought of.  We usually try to sit those children with 504s or on IEPs in the front.
I'm aware that some students like the negative attention they get from their peers and from the teachers.  For some students, this may be the only attention they can get.  I try my hardest to ignore a lot of these behaviors and go out of my way to praise them when they do something right.  For some students this seems to work, but with others it has been a struggle.  It's also difficult scolding your students sometimes, because you want them to like you.  Sometimes I feel like I'm a mean teacher because I'm always saying, "Do this/stop doing that."  Hopefully I can work on the way I interact with my students in a more positive manner, so I don't have to feel like I'm always giving orders.
I like the idea of the dialogue journals a lot.  I had a teacher in seventh grade who did something similar and it made me feel very comfortable around him.  I could write about my feelings, my struggles, and anything else that was on my mind, and he would write back.  Perhaps I can suggest this idea to my lead teacher.