The Things You Can Read: Hygiene and Classics?

The Things You Can Read welcomes you and thanks you for your readership. We, here at The Things You Can Read, ask your help, if you visit our site regularly, please follow us either via email or Google Friend Connect. Launched on June 7, 2012, our site has already attracted a great deal of attention. One of the goals of the site is to feature reviews of Children's Picture Books, Young Adult novels and Adult Literary Fiction/Nonfiction. A second goal for the blog is to be a resource for teachers of English and writing--with examples of student created writing, writing tips, resource links, and the opportunity to pick the brain of a seasoned English teacher. To spice things up...every now and then, we'll also include random quotes and thoughts on education and life in general, but our ultimate goal is to reach out into the blogosphere and be a "Book Whisperer" and "Writing Whisperer" to children and adults of all ages. Thank you for your readership. Here is to a lifetime filled with reading and writing.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Hygiene and Classics?

Herman Melville

Who would'a thought that reading the first paragraph of Moby Dick by Herman Melville would increase handwashing! Well, the collaboration between Herman Melville and Allegheny County Helalth Department in Pennsylvania has proven that if you start washing your hands and reading the excerpt from Moby Dick at the same time, you should be nice and clean by the time you finish reading! Why was this implimented? Well, according to the Literary Classics Handwashing Awareness Campaign, here is the rationale behind the campaign:

A campaign to promote handwashing dubbed the Literary Classics: A New Kind of Reading Material for Public Restroomswon the Health Department the prestigious J. Howard Beard Award from the National Association of County and City Health Officials way back in 1999.

A major outbreak of shigellosis — an intestinal illness often associated with poor handwashing practices — prompted ACHD and a local ad agency to develop a series of restroom posters that were based on the works of famous authors like Charles Dickens and Herman Melville and promoted handwashing in an amusing way. Shigellosis cases dropped dramatically and surveys found handwashing rates to be much higher in restrooms where the posters were displayed.

If you want to impliment this idea at home, here are a few more posters that have worked in the past...