Nobody just walks into a classroom and begins to teach without some consideration of self-

presentation, much as nobody sits down to write a poem, an essay, or a novel without
considering the voice behind the words, its tone and texture, and the traditions of writing within a
particular genre. Voice is everything in literature, playing in the mind of the writer, the ear of the
reader; the search for authenticity in that voice is the writer's work of a lifetime. What I want to
suggest here is that teachers, like writers, also need to invent and cultivate a voice, one that
serves their personal needs as well as the material at hand, one that feels authentic. It should also
take into account the nature of the students who are being addressed, their background in the
subject and their disposition as a class, which is not always easy to gauge. It takes a good deal of
time, as well as experimentation, to find this voice, in teaching as in writing.

Jay Parini, The Art of Teaching, p. 58