Paula M. Carbone

Paula M. Carbone is a professor of clinical education at USC Rossier. She works with pre-service teachers (PSTs) and undergraduate students.

Teaching an undergraduate class on sustainability, Carbone equips students to intervene in issues of importance for climate justice. Using systems thinking and student-centered inquiry, the course focuses on solutions for climate change and how students can promote them through education and other avenues to reach a wider public.

Carbone works with pre-service teacher candidates in secondary English. PSTs engage in planning curriculum and enacting pedagogies informed by justice. The focus is on student-centered approaches by addressing the needs of all learners and ensuring that students develop pedagogies for developing strong critical thinking skills to critical analysis, problem solving, and effective communication, among other key aspects of learning. Students apply theory to practice using the frameworks of literacy theory – including ecocriticism, critical media literacy, and dialogic discussion among others. Preparing the youth PSTs will work with to develop their capacity to make relevant meaning of the worlds they inhabit in order to enact change for justice locally, nationally, and globally.

Before coming to USC Rossier, Dr. Carbone was a high school English teacher in Los Angeles where she encountered firsthand the significant number of underrepresented students recycled through remediation, effectively constraining their access to rigorous, consistent experiences with authentic, relevant learning. This experience continues to guide her work. She received her PhD in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles, her MEd from the University of California, Los Angeles and a BFA in Theater Education and Language Arts from Boston University, College of Fine Arts.

USC Sustainability Grant - 2021

Rossier Mentoring Award - 2017

EDUC 439:  Education for Sustainable Futures

The purpose of this course is to examine the role of public education in today’s society –local, national, and global - as a vehicle for the betterment of humanity’s shared future. The overarching question this course poses as an organizing principle is: How might disparate, seemingly irreconcilable agendas within a multicultural society work together within public educational contexts for a sustainable, shared future? Sustainable futures cannot rely solely on "technological advances, legislation and policy." They must be accompanied by..."changes in mindsets, values and lifestyles, and the strengthening of people's capacities to bring about change" (UNESCO, 2012, p.5).

EDUC 673 & 677: Application of Curriculum & Pedagogy in Urban English Language Arts Classrooms, Parts A & B

This course is designed for candidates to apply content knowledge of English Language Arts using pedagogical approaches that promote complex, rigorous, and appropriately challenging learning. The major goals are to engage students in meaningful learning using dialogic discussions, culturally situated skills development, problem-posing inquiry, and and other competencies in ELA to facilitate instruction that enables learners to become collaborative and independent problem-solvers, as well as critical and creative thinkers. Antiracist pedagogy frames the course as an Enduring Understanding that Eurocentric approaches to planning, teaching, and assessing should be reframed to include Black, Indigenous, and People of Color’s (BIPOC) perspectives and knowledge.

EDUC 603: Framing Organizational Change and Leadership   

This class sets the foundation for framing problems of practice to open possibilities of justice, by rooting into personal and community based practices that promote justice. We draw from the concept of emergence (Brown, 2017) in acknowledging we make up our systems. What we embody individually and within our relationships are the building blocks of our institutions. Therefore, we make space to learn about ourselves, each other, and how we can create a space for our collective growth toward equitable practice. From there, we position our practices within historical and future contexts. We explore epistemologies (i.e., conceptions of what it means to “know”) underlying (in)equitable systems. We center the questions: who is harmed, who benefits, and from whose perspectives do we ask/answer these questions. We break down specific examples of framing problems of practice in ways that open possibilities of justice within education, policing, nonprofits, for profit organizations, medicine, and other fields. We support students to draw parallels to their own practice through each example. Theory is introduced as a tool to expose systemic oppression as well as the resilience, joy, brilliance, and resistance of oppressed people. Each student will be invited to analyze a personal problem of practice through theoretical  lenses provided in this class. Through this process students will develop academic literacy skills, including selecting sources, interpreting evidence, and presenting evidence to back up assertions. These theoretical and academic literacy skills are essential in the program. In further classes, students will continue to develop and expand on these skills in assignments, coursework, and the dissertation.    

*Brown, A. (2017). Emergent strategy. AK Press. 

• Carbone, P. M. (2017). Multimodal composing: Engaging diverse learners in AP English Language and Composition. Gifted Education Quarterly, Winter 2017. Available at http://giftededucationcommunicator.com/gec-winter-2017/   Carbone, P. M. (2016, June 03). [Review of the book Urban teaching: the essentials, (3rd. ed.)]. Teachers College Record, http://www.tcrecord.org
• Carbone, P. M. (2014). Aristotle in the classroom: scaffolding the rhetorical situation. Voices in the Middle, 21(3), 41-48.   Carbone, P. M., & Reynolds, R. (2013). Considering Community Literacies in the Secondary Classroom: A Collaborative Teacher and Researcher Study Group. Teacher Development.   Carbone, P. M. (2012). Writing Instruction to Support Generation 1.5 Students’ Acquisition of Academic Persuasive Writing. In B. Yoon & H. K. Kim (Eds.). Teachers’ roles in second language learning: Classroom applications of sociocultural theory. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.   Carbone, P. M. (2010). Using commonplace books to help students develop multiple perspectives. English Journal, 99(6).   Carbone, P. M., & Orellana, M. F. (2010). Developing academic identities: Persuasive writing as a tool to strengthen emergent academic identities. Research in the Teaching of English, 44(3), 292-316.   Martínez, R., Orellana, M., Pacheco, M., & Carbone, P. (2008). Translating Voices: Connecting Bilingual Youths’ Translation Experiences to Academic Writing. Language Arts, 85(6), 21-431.   Pacheco, M., Carbone, P., & Martínez, R. (2006). Professional book reviews: Learning from multilingual and multicultural students to plan literacy curriculum. Language Arts, 84(2), 194-6.

Current research is focused on the trajectories of first year English Language Arts teachers in secondary settings and their implementation of strategic learning from their teacher education preparation, especially in writing instruction and assessment. 

National Board Certified Teacher, ELA