I'll describe a project to analyze the dynamics evident in episodes of students' inquiry, from a range of school settings, elementary through university. Working with collaborating faculty from physics, biology, and chemistry, we select examples everyone agrees clearly show students’ doing science. We then subject these to close analysis, moment-by-moment, to understand as much as we can what aspects of the situation contributed to the dynamics. Finally, we look across cases for overarching themes. I will review several interacting dimensions of what we have seen across cases: one or more students' positioning themselves as not understanding (Watkins, et al, 2018); the role of affect including "vexation" (Radoff, 2017); and students' efforts and agency in articulating problems (Phillips et al, 2017, in press).