"Castle" fan's final paper leads to lifelong social media memories

By Raul Lopez, '12

Senior English major Allyson Willoughby earned herself more than an “A” last semester, as her research paper about her favorite television show, ABC’s “Castle,” resulted in a chance cyber-meeting with show creator Andrew Marlowe.

 

Last fall, Willoughby was enrolled in Dr. Bruce Simon’s, “Introduction to the English Major,” which required students to design their own topic for a research paper due at the end of the semester.

 

The course allowed students to propose a research project “that relates to English studies in any way,” according to the syllabus. Dr. Simon also requested that students meet with him to discuss their proposals to ensure that they were on the right track, and possibly suggest new ideas and directions that each student should take.

 

Once the student meetings concluded, Dr. Simon organized the students into groups with similar topics to have an in-class discussion. The peer review sessions and presentations gave students the opportunity to continue to craft their ideas while formulating their research and final papers.

 

In hopes of connecting her love of television with academia, Willoughby turned to Castle,a weekly, hour-long detective “dramedy,” for help.

 

“I never expected to bring such an idea to a professor and try to make it into a research paper,” said Ms. Willoughby. “Dr. Simon was extremely enthusiastic about the idea and had further plans for my paper.”

 

Ms. Willoughby extended her paper into a different realm, turning it into a blog post on her Tumblr account. “I wanted to get some feedback from other Castle fans, and they all thought it was a great idea.”

 

Tumblr, a microblogging platform that allows users to share smaller versions of traditional blog posts is famous for giving its users the ability to share photos and opinions at a rapid pace. It also facilitates conversations after each post.

 

After the semester, Dr. Simon encouraged Willoughby to post the paper online to share her end results with the original post’s followers, and the numerous responses it sparked surprised her.

 

“I initially thought that I wouldn’t have gotten any feedback, since I only had three or four people comment on my initial post,” Willoughby said.

 

So, Willoughby thought, why stop there? On a whim one January night, she took her online conversation one step further. “I decided to tweet a link of my paper to the creator, Andrew Marlowe.”

A few hours later, Willoughby was awoken by the sound of her phone’s alert tone, and the following message:

It’s just one more example of how learning at Fredonia often goes far beyond the classroom.

To see the complete exchange, visit: http://allthe-songs-makesense.tumblr.com/post/16811490604/i-literally-still-cannot-breathe-best-day-of-my