The widespread use of digital technologies has made multimodal composing quite common among students these days. The use of technology to manage students' learning and create their output has been found to increase their engagement, interest, choice and cooperation. This article reports on a qualitative study that explored the experiences and perceptions of four students who participated in a classroom presentation. In particular, the study focused on students' engagement through multimodal composing of presentation slides and on their strategic use of different non-verbal modes. Data sources included classroom observation, interview transcripts and multimodal products. The results reveal that students perceived multimodal composition as motivating and useful for communicating discipline-specific language in a more confident and empowering way. Factors that influenced students' engagement included cooperation, curiosity, control and peer recognition. Knowledge of the different ways in which students can express themselves authentically can help L2 teachers to design pedagogical frameworks that include digital composition skills.