This study employed a sample of 60 pre-service teachers to examine the guiding effects of understanding critical reading theories on using external reading strategies such as note-taking and underlining when confronting an ironical literary text. The study broke down the teachers into one control group of 30 teachers and one experimental group of 30 teachers. Two ironical texts were used to collect data from the sample of pre-service teachers--one read before the experimental group received instruction in critical reading theories and the other after such instruction which led to the finding that the entire sample of pre-service teachers mostly summarized and read the texts superficially before they had been exposed to training in critical reading instruction. After undergoing the critical reading instruction, most of the pre-service teachers in the experimental group who had previously summarized the subject text now rewrote the author's expressions, which is indicative critical reading. When the notes taken and the expressions underlined by the critical readers were analyzed, it was determined that critical readers underlined and took notes of more critical points more and summarized less.