A gap still exists between teaching and assessment in terms of using critical thinking skills. Pretorius et al (2017) say that” universities are still heavily reliant on the use of more traditional forms of assessment such as essays, tests, and exams” (p.389). Accordingly, students are affected by what is called the negative wash back effect, thus becoming demotivated and disinterested in subject matter. This paper deals with one area which introduces teaching and assessment of reading comprehension through critical thinking. Critical thinking enables learners to employ skills such as analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating and judging while reading texts. The theoretical framework of reference used is the “Response Theory”, where students are encouraged to contribute their own thoughts and conceive themselves as having ownership of the texts (Hirvela 2013). This theory posits the reader as the most important element in the reading process, and thus may be successfully implemented in assessment lessening the gap mentioned earlier. It also allows students to write their personal reactions and comments to texts, to reflect on their discoveries and to connect their knowledge to what they have learnt from the text, thus reading not only between the lines but also what Woodbeck (2014) calls reading beyond the lines. This raises students’ critical language awareness preventing them from becoming passive readers answering only comprehension questions (Correia 2006) and giving them ownership of their own understanding. One of the applications of the “Response Theory “is Digital Story Telling (DST). Such a strategy opens the door for applying the 21st century skills; namely critical and creative thinking, problem solving, communicating, and collaborating. It motivates learning as well as paves the way for teaching through a communicative approach. It also introduces language in a contextualized way providing the sub-skills of critical thinking. Yang and Wu (2012) say that DST enhances students’ critical thinking. They add that “For instructors, story mapping provides a basis for immediate assessment of students’ stories” (p.340). In my presentation, critical thinking teaching and assessment activities for reading comprehension will be modeled along with illustrations from students’ production.