"An ‘X’ marks the spot on the seating chart"

An illustrious hotel gives you a room, sometimes from specifications you request, but a place is assigned your own and there you reside.  Seating arrangements have the power of three – it allows you control of who sits next to who, it allows attendance to be taken in a glance, and it allows you to learn student’s names quickly.  While a seating arrangement may at first seem despotic and unpopular, it gives students time to adjust to you and your classroom as well as their peers.  Because I taught math, all my classes had a variation of ages and adjustments were usually taking place in the first couple weeks between the students.  A seating arrangement allows students the knowledge that they had a place to sit that was theirs; it relieves the concern of the territory of seniors, diehard friends, or sports jocks that had to be together. 
In my first year, I found that I was moving students around based on who would distract each other and those with visual problems.  If I helped those with visual problems to see, they were less of a distraction for the rest of the class.  After separating several “clown combos” of friends, they were less likely to act foolishly or get out of hand.  I found my first year of teaching was relieved at times by the power to “move” a student from their place; it was a method of punishment I hadn’t counted on being available.