This document provides an agenda for an English writing techniques (EWRT) class that includes: 1. A vocabulary test, reviewing counterarguments and conclusions, and learning the rhetorical strategies of aphorism and chiasmus. 2. Guidelines for writing counterarguments to address alternative opinions, and conclusions to tie the character back to the work or apply insights to real life. 3. Examples and exercises for writing concise aphorisms using different methods, and using chiasmus through reversing word or phrase order between parallel clauses. 4. Homework is assigned to read part of A Game of Thrones and post examples applying the techniques.

1. EWRT
2
Class
7

2. AGENDA
• Vocabulary Test #3
• Review
• Counterarguments
• Conclusions
• Rhetorical Strategies: Aphorism and Chiasmus
• In-Class Writing: Counterarguments, Conclusions,
Aphorism, Chiasmus

3. Take 20 minutes
Use a piece of notebook paper for your answers

4. Review
• Characteristics of your character
• At least six different methods
• The prompt
• One of five: or you have blended two or more
• Directed Summary
• Working Thesis
• Outline
• Paragraph practice: Quotations with explanations
• An analogy or two

5. The Counterargument

6. A Counterargument
• Address alternative opinions your readers might have regarding
your character.
• Think about instances when your character appears to act in a way
that could be perceived as contrary to your thesis. Explain why you
don’t see the behavior as contrary.
• Explain behaviors that are out of the ordinary or out of line with
your thesis by analyzing text to show extenuating circumstances.
Consider the arguing exercises we have
done in class. How might you address
your peers’ questions and comments
without the obvious question/answer
format?

7. Conclusion
Gotta have it!

8. The Conclusion
You could discuss how this
character fits into the work as a
whole.
You could address how the work
would be changed if your
character were gone.
You could apply insights about
this character to a real-world
situation. Do we grow as readers
from interacting with your
character?
You might SUBTLY remind the
reader of your central idea and
thesis.

9. Rhetorical
Strategies
Learning to recognize them
Learning to write them

10. Aphorism
• An aphorism is a
saying—a concise
statement of a
principle—that has
been accepted as true.
• Familiar example
• “A penny saved is a
penny earned”
• There is no fool like an
old fool”

11. Aphorisms
•Such statements have important
qualities:
• The are pithy: they say a great deal in a
few words.
• They appear to contain wisdom: they
are delivered as truth and they have
the ring of other aphorisms we accept
as true.

14. Writing Aphorisms:
Method One
• There is the ‘spontaneous combustion’ method, in which the
aphorism flares out fully formed at unexpected moments,
sending the writer scrabbling for napkins, envelopes or any
other scrap of paper on which to write it down. Stanislaw Jerzy
Lec was a great practitioner of this method:
 No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
Thanks to author and journalist James Geary for the information and examples of aphorisms: http://www.jamesgeary.com/blog/how-
to-write-an-aphorism/

15. Method Two
• Then there is the ‘deliberate composition’ method as
practiced by the likes of La Rochefoucauld. He would
attend a swanky salon, discuss all manner of subjects,
such as love and friendship, then retire for hours to his
room where he would produce several sheets of prose,
all of which he would eventually distill down to one or
two sharp, shining sentences:
 In the adversity of even our best friends we always
find something not wholly displeasing.

16. Method Three
• And then there are the ‘accidental aphorists,’
those writers who never intend to compose
aphorisms but just can’t help themselves—
aphorisms occur naturally within longer
stretches of text, such as essays, novels, or
poems. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a classic
accidental aphorist:
 What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have
yet to be discovered.

17. Rules to Consider
•Keep it short (after all, only a fool
gives a speech in a burning house),
•Definitive (no ifs, ands, or buts),
•Philosophical (it should make you
think), and give it a twist.

18. Not fancy, just
thoughtful
• What is a bastard? A man whose birth right
overshadows his human rights.
• Bravery conquers fear; otherwise, it is
stupidity.
• If Arya cannot save herself, she cannot hope to
be saved.

19. Give it a try: Choose a word and write a
short, pointed statement expressing a
truth, doctrine, or principle.
• Power
• Execution
• Death
• Betrayal
• Prostitution
• Hostage
• Bastard
• Winter
• Brave
• Fear
• Throne
• Honor
Example: Marriage
A lottery in which men
stake their liberty and women
their happiness.
-- Madame DiRieux
One long conversation,
checkered by disputes.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

20. Chiasmus
"to mark with an X.”
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED)
defines chiasmus as, "A grammatical
figure by which the order of words in one
of two of parallel clauses is inverted in the
other.” This may involve a repetition of
the same words ("Pleasure's a sin, and
sometimes sin's a pleasure" —Byron) or
just a reversed parallel between two
corresponding pairs of ideas.

21. A reversed order of the grammar in two or more clauses in a
sentence will yield a chiasmus.
Consider the example of a parallel sentence:
“He knowingly led and we blindly followed”
Inverting into chiasmus:
“He knowingly led and we followed blindly”
Simple Grammatical
Chiasmus

22. From Writing with Clarity and style: Chapter 1 by Robert A. Harris

23. verb adverb verb adverb
verb adverb adverb verb

25. Try converting these two from
parallelism to chiasmus
• Parallelism: Arya trains Nymeria daily and plays
with her happily
• Parallelism: When Jon Snow arrives at the wall,
he seems happy enough, but when the arms
master treats him badly, he is frustrated and
angry.

26. Here are two possibilities
• Parallelism: Arya trains Nymeria daily and plays with
her happily
• Chiasmus: Arya trains Nymeria daily and happily plays
with her
• Parallelism: When Jon Snow arrives at the wall, he
seems happy enough, but when the arms master
treats him badly, he is frustrated and angry.
• Chiasmus: When Jon Snow arrives at the wall, he
seems happy enough, but he is frustrated and angry
when the arms master treats him badly.

27. Try it!
• Write a couple of sentences
using chiasmus instead of
parallelism.
• Try writing new sentences.
• Look for some sentences in
your writing that will lend
themselves to chiasmus.

28. • One of the most fascinating features of chiasmus is this
"marking with an X" notion. Take Mae West's signature
line, "It's not the men in my life, it's the life in my men."
By laying out the two clauses parallel to each other, it's
possible to draw two lines connecting the key words:
It's not the men in my life
X
it's the life in my men.
Thanks to author and psychologist Dr. Mardy Grothe for the information and
examples of chiasmus http://www.drmardy.com/chiasmus/definition.shtml

29. Word Reversal Chiasmus
Home is where the great are small
X
and the small are great
One should eat to live
X
not live to eat

30. The ABBA Method
One other interesting way to view chiastic quotes is the
ABBA method. Let's go back to the Mae West quote. If
you assign the letters A and B to the first appearance of
the key words and A' and B' (read "A prime" and "B
prime") to their second appearance, they follow what is
referred to as an ABBA pattern:
A It's not the men
B in my life
B' it's the life
A' in my men

31. Chiasmus can also be achieved by reversing
more than two key words. This observation
from the 18th century English writer, Charles
Caleb Colton, is a good example:
"How strange it is that we of the present day
are constantly praising
that past age which our fathers abused,
and as constantly abusing that present age,
which our children will praise.”

32. Laid out schematically, it looks like this:
A How strange it is that we of the present day
are constantly praising
B that past age
C which our fathers abused,
C' and as constantly abusing
B' that present age,
A' which our children will praise
Word Reversal

33. Another good example comes from
Genesis 9:6:
A Whoever sheds
B the blood
C of man
C' by man shall
B' his blood
A' be shed

34. Phrase Reversal
• "Lust is what makes you keep wanting to
do it,
even when you have no desire to be with
each other.
Love is what makes you keep wanting to be
with each other,
even when you have no desire to do it."
• — Judith Viorst

35. More Examples
• "We do not stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing." --
Benjamin Franklin
• "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of
absence." -- Carl Sagan
• “All for one and one for all” --Alexandre Dumas
• "I am stuck on Band-Aid, and Band-Aid's stuck on
me."
(advertising jingle for Band-Aid bandages)

36. Letter Reversal
• "A magician is a person who pulls rabbits
out of hats.
An experimental psychologist is a person
who pulls habits out of rats.”
• "a doe and fawn" hide from "their foe at
dawn."

37. Sound Reversal
•"I'd rather have a bottle in front
of me
Than a frontal lobotomy."
— Randy Hanzlick, title of song

38. Reversal of Homonyms
• "Why do we drive on a parkway
and park on a driveway?”
— Richard Lederer
• "Here's champagne for our real friends
and real pain for our sham friends.”
— Edwardian Toast

39. Number Reversal
• "A lawyer starts life giving $500 worth of law
for $5 and ends giving $5 worth for $500.”
— Benjamin H. Brewster
• "Errol Flynn died on a 70-foot boat with a 17-
year-old girl.
Walter has always wanted to go that way,
but he's going to settle for a 17-footer with a
70-year-old.
— Betsy Maxwell Cronkite, wife of Walter
Cronkite.

40. Review and Practice: Try to use words
and phrases that link to your character
• Word Reversal: One should eat to live not live to eat
• Phrase Reversal: Lust: keep wanting to do it, no desire to be with
each other: Love: keep wanting to be with each other, even when
you have no desire to do it.
• Letter Reversal: Rabbits out of hats: habits out of rats
• Sound Reversal: Bottle in front of me: frontal lobotomy
• Reversal of Homonyms: Drive on a parkway: park on a driveway
• Number Reversal: 70’ boat 17 year old girl: 17’ boat 70 year old
woman

41. Homework
• Read A Game of Thrones through
page 700
• Post # 12: Counterargument
• Post #13: Conclusion
• Post #14: Examples of aphorism
and chiasmus