Almost all of the author's community college students feel self-conscious about their vocabulary. She thinks that their resistance to expanding their vocabulary has many tangled roots: sometimes the students seem nervous about what they leave behind as they notch their vocabulary up to a more formal, college level. This article discusses how the Context Journal helps students identify unfamiliar words and references, reproduce good text, explain their thinking, and fill in their vocabulary gaps, connecting the language they have now with the language they need to navigate academic texts. It presents the main benefits from this assignment, and some of the author's favorite student responses.