dominant concern was over how to read the meaning of these words and
phrases without any punctuation to guide the way. Here is the discussion:
Annette:I want to know why the writer stopped at “two lips.”
It seems like there should be more to this. Unless...
Cherylann:Maybe the dogs are blue and red.
Annette:The dogs are walking flowers that are blue and red
tulips.A short time later, Margaret came back to the final phrases of the
piece:
Margaret:I have a meaning question. Is it “flowers that are
blue and red, tulips” or “flowers that are blue and red tulips”?
And if you put an exclamation point on it, it would make a mean-
ing to the whole poem.
Annette:If you are interpreting it by the picture, it looks like
she is saying “flowers that are red and blue” and “tulips” is
another thought.
Liz:Is the tulip made of red and blue?
Annette:No, it’s purple.Later, someone questioned how the child could mean “in the sky
dogs walking flowers,” and Cherylann offered that it made sense to her.
Upon reading those lines, she had imagined looking up at a sky full of
clouds and seeing “dogs walking flowers” in the ever-changing cloud for-
mations. Alyce wanted to see “all of us put in the punctuation we think
should go in here. We’d come up with seven or nine different pieces.”
Because Julie seemed to be handling the role of the facilitator quite
comfortably, I decided I could participate in this conference as a reader.
I had been quiet for some time, but in examining the poem, I made a dis-
covery that startled me. I had noted earlier that the child had written
“thats the end” in Line 4 after “two lips” and then erased it. Somehow, this
observation, and my own confusion over why this child had broken the
lines where she did, led me to count the syllables in each line.
242 Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind