In his foundational work, "English Composition and Rhetoric," Alexander Bain set forth the framework for what students and teachers now routinely refer to as the five-paragraph essay. Teachers were so inculcated with Bain's paradigm for the "perfect" essay format, they in turn have inculcated their students, and they just say now, "Write an essay." Students, college admissions, employers--all are expecting the five paragraphs. But that was "then." People have come a long way since green pens and marginal notes, Alexander Bain, and the preordained five-paragraph essay, but no one says one cannot tinker with it, rethink it, reengage students, for as one teacher noted, most professions outside of a certain number do not require the five-paragraph essay, but they "do" require writing skills, critical thinking, and innovation. Upon "rethinking and reconfiguring" the five-paragraph essay, this author created the "Interactive Vocabulary Journal" (IVJ), a yearlong project that students can manipulate, construct, and deconstruct. With assigned readings in class and discussions, students take the assigned vocabulary, researching and gathering video, images, articles, songs, quotations, and their own writing to describe and define each word. Rather than write the definition from the dictionary in a perfect, preordained format, students take ownership of their vocabulary. They use the digital tools with which they are so familiar and learn in spite of themselves. In this one project, students are writing, thinking critically, sharing with classmates and their teacher.