Strands of Yarn

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Students’ initial ideas are like strands of yarn, some unconnected, some loosely interwoven. The act of instruction can be viewed as helping students unravel individual strands of belief, label them, and weave them into a fabric of more complete understanding. James Minstrell

Student ideas are like strands of yarn. The strands of yarn represent the student's random thoughts and the student's pre-exsisting knowledge. The teacher needs to unravel the misconceptions of prior knowledge then reorganize, restucture, and review those ideas collaboratively. In a sense, students need to be taught to challenge and question their own pre-existing knowledge in order to think critically.