"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." This is a well-known adage with which many are familiar. Children learn it from an early age as they begin to walk, ride their bike, or tie their shoes. Adults repeatedly encourage children by saying, "You can do it! Give it a try! Just try harder!" However, when trying harder becomes part of the classroom discourse, what impact does it have on children's views of literacy learning? What does it mean to try harder with respect to literacy? This article describes how a group of teachers in a graduate program in literacy at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, began to view the common sense notion of "trying harder" in a new light as they examined classroom discourses around children's understanding of literacy and how one becomes good at it.