Is There a 'Deep Meaning'? or, How Do We Understand A Text?

     Please print this out and bring it to class with you.

     1. Poem

     Out in the desert where the sands are hot

     The lizards dont walk they gallop and trot

     You would too cause it aint so sweet

     To have that sand a burnin your feet

     Now a lizards feet is tender things

     And it wouldnt cost God much to give em all wings.


     2. Humpty-Dumpty

     Humpty dumpty sat on a wall

     Humpty dumpty had a great fall

     All the king's horses and all the king's men

     Couldn't put Humpty together again.


     Think about these poems. 

     What do they mean?

     How would you go about finding out what they might mean?