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Abstract: 

This article reports the author’s experiences
using graphic novels with pre-service teachers in a young
adult literature course. Drawing on critical response
papers two students composed after reading Pride of
Baghdad, a graphic novel by Brian K. Vaughan and
Niko Henrichon, the author argues that when readers
possess the background knowledge needed to approx-
imate the role of the implied reader—that is, the imag-
inary audience for whom authors envision themselves
writing—they are capable of engaging with graphic novels in ways that readers who lack experience with the
form, or who question its literary merit, are not.

Actual readers might be thought to adopt the role of
the implied reader when they possess the background
knowledge—factual, cultural, and literary—needed to in-
teract with the repertoire on which a text draws. It is
also worth noting that the notion of an implied reader
reflects social constructivist theories of reading insofar
as it assumes that literary conventions are constructed.
Recognizing this, it is possible to conclude that readers
adopt the role of the implied reader when they accept
an “author’s invitation to read in a particularly socially
constituted way that is shared by the author and his or her
expected readers” (Rabinowitz 1987, 22, my emphasis). (34)


The concept of the implied reader—that is, of a figure
that possesses the literary, artistic, factual, and cultural
knowledge needed to transact with graphic novels—is
helpful in this regard. It belies the idea that there is lit-
tle skill or knowledge involved in reading images, and
it challenges teachers and students alike to ask what
graphic novels require them to know as readers. As
teacher educators, we ought to create opportunities for
pre-service teachers to ask—and answer—questions of
this sort, as doing so will prepare them to reflect criti-
cally on the role images play in the host of multimodal
texts they and their students interact with outside of
school. (37)
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