Students who can use a term conversantly in academic environments know how to use it precisely in their writing and in their interactions with others; they can be said to deeply know, not just the word term in alphabetic or spoken forms, but the connections to ideas the term embodies. When students are intrigued by words and ideas, they want to dig more intensely. Traditionally, word learning tasks in schools do not mirror the way that words are learned beyond school walls. Vocabulary self-collection strategy plus (VSS+) is an instructional routine using multimodal and online tools to promote engaged word learning in an authentic way. Generative technologies, such as those employed in VSS+, use the affordances of technology to combine reading and writing skills with genuine inquiry for learning content within learning communities.