Three mid-level mathematics teachers (grades 7 and 8) and a university mathematics educator formed a year-long professional learning community. The objective was to collectively look at how they were promoting the Standards for Mathematical Practice (SMP) (CCSSI 2010) in their classes. The monthly discussions followed an iterative cycle in which they continually shared instructional strategies and discussed their effectiveness in helping students demonstrate the SMP. Although all the Standards for Mathematical Practice were included in the discussions, this article will share how the iterative cycle helped identify four strategies the authors found effective in middle-level classrooms. In particular, these four strategies promoted SMP 1: "Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them" (CCSSI 2010, p. 6). In this article, the authors describe these strategies along with samples of student work: (1) Strategy 1: Does it make sense; (2) Strategy 2: The process of elimination (POE); (3) Strategy 3: Perseverance Logs; and (4) Strategy 4: Analyzing incorrect responses.