Ellie's Pushout Blog

Hello readers! Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be discussing how Chapter 4 relates to current events in our society. Chapter 4, titled Learning on Lockdown, discusses on how black girls learn in juvenile detention centers. Monique Morris argues that these detention centers fail to prioritize education and instead focus on "...discipline, uninspired teaching, and a [simple] curriculum..." (146). The detention centers teach one curriculum to all of the girls, regardless of their age, grade, or level of intelligence. A juvenile named Mia talks about one of the results of this inferior educational system, narrating how she was kicked out of class for asking the teacher for something to do after finishing all of her work (148). Morris includes many different variations of this story, situations where the teacher gets annoyed at the students for simply asking a question. In the prior example Mia was asked to leave the classroom after she asked for something else to do. Girl...

Hello readers! Welcome back to my blog!  I have chosen this blog to be my free choice blog. In this blog I will summarize the way this chapter develops Monique W. Morris' overall argument through the use of rhetorical strategies. This chapter is titled Jezebel in the Classroom. It discusses how many young girls turn to the sex industry when the school system fails them. The chapter starts with a short poem that I copied down below. "Tra la-la boom-di-yay I met a boy today He gave me 50 cents To go behind the fence He knocked me on the ground And pulled my panties down He counted 1-2-3 And stuck it into me My mother was surprised To see my belly rise My father jumped for joy Because it was a boy" (96). This is an aspect of Morris' writing that I would like to discuss. Before each chapter Morris includes a short rhyme or poem that pertains to what she talks about in the chapter. In this case the rhyme is about prostitution and Chapter 3 i...

Hello readers, and welcome back to my blog. In this blog I will be discussing the rhetorical strategies Monique Morris uses in her novel Pushout . As I mentioned in my previous blog, Morris' writing style is a blend of pathos and logos. Morris constantly inserts narratives that help the reader understand that what Morris is writing about is not fiction, it is happening in real life. For example, Morris writes about an incident "...in 2013 involving eight-year-old Jmiyha Rickman, an autistic child who suffered from depression and separation anxiety. Her hands, feet, and waist were restrained when she was arrested in her Illinois elementary school after throwing a 'bad tantrum' and allegedly trying to hit a school resource officer" (57). This is one of the narratives Morris uses to open the second chapter; the beginning narratives all discuss the harsh punishments black girls face for acting out or having a bad attitude, the topic of Chapter 2. It is clear through...

Hello readers! I am very excited to share with you my initial thoughts regarding Dr. Monique W. Morris' novel Pushout . In this post I will be analyzing the argument she makes throughout the beginning of the novel. The introduction begins with a moving account of a fourteen-year-old girl who was the victim of police brutality at her school; it is what initially drew me to the book. If I was going to have to read a nonfiction book I wanted to read something that was not simply a collection of meaningless facts, I wanted to read something real, something raw with emotion, and Pushout  has so far exceeded those expectations. The emotion contained in this book becomes clear as the foreword ends with the phrase "it is a love story" when referring to the book (xvii). Morris is incredibly passionate about equal treatment for black girls, and her love and appreciation for black girls is apparent. She hides her empathy for the struggles black girls face behind evidence that prov...