If we follow the caper star clockwise, starting with “checklist” and signifying just the facts as they are presented, we have ready at hand a way to begin rethinking the types of inquiry proper to certain areas of thought [FIGURE 7]. On the first of the five points then, “checklist,” let us hang journalism, objective accounts, and the raw data of scientific research. On the second, concerning “characters” and their relations, let us place psychology, sociology, anthropology, and politics. The third, at the bottom left, concerning “words,” let us imagine linguistics, philology, rhetoric, and dialectic. The fourth point, “questions,” accommodates philosophy broadly speaking, and the generating of topics and concepts, as well as modes of inquiry, whether inductive or deductive, proper to law and medical research. And finally, the top point, concerning “U” (a tag which stands for “you” as well as the first letter of “universal”), let us place ethics, religion, theology, and practices conducive to reflection and self realization—any means of understanding your place in the world and your stake in the matter under consideration. As the crossing lines of the five-pointed star indicate, all points are interrelated. As for the center, whatever one wants to place there can be illuminated by the five categories broadly conceived as just outlined.

This five-fold approach covers the most fundamental and time-honored categories of thought. Corresponding to the five points on the caper star, they are: (1) the rational process of cause and effect (“x” happened which led to “y” and then “z”); (2) the often irrational nature of human interactions (as Socrates put it: “knowing the better, but doing the worse”); (3) taking stock of the extent to which language is a medium for conveying both sense and transmitting the values of a given culture, (4) the various faces of interrogation (the truism that every news-story must consider and seek to answer: “who? what? where? when? how? and, if possible, why”); and (5) the self-conscious reflection on one’s own point of view (“what we believe to be true is what keeps us from discovering the truth”).

Since spirited leaps of imagination are required for these interactive projects conducing to the gathering of information that can help students make connections they might not otherwise consider, they have been dubbed “capers.”