Mary Ellery

A narrative exploration
6R 2015

The Narrative Text

In the year 2050, Mary Ellery, daughter of
William and Elizabeth Ellery, left her
home in Mountsville to travel to the
planet Osiris. She was a member of the
group Venture, led by Dr. James Harvey.
Mary never returned. The team does not
speak of her. There is no mention of her
in the records and her name does not
appear in the medal citation that honours
the work of Dr. Harvey and his group .

Why are we doing

this?
To collectively create a narrative
To learn how history is created
with story telling, documentation
and record keeping
To engage in drama activities
To stucture our narrative writing
To have fun!

Lesson 1 Review
In lesson one, we explored the text
In groups we created tableaus of Dr. James
Harvey and the Venture crew returning from
Osiris. We created a caption for this image
We created tableaus of Dr. James Harvey and
the Venture crew as they might have appeared
in a press photo before they ventured to
Osiris. We created a caption to match the
image
We created transitional tableaus and said the
captions with expression
We observed different group tableau transitions
and discussed similarities and differences

Journey to a new Earth!

Another Dr Harvey
Expedition?

Expedition Goes South!

Dr Harveys Venture
Strikes Again!

First adVenture!

The Return From

Osiris!

Today we will be
Investigating the events that occurred between the
embarkation of the Venture and its return and what led to
the erasure of Mary Ellery from the records.
Grouping: Whole class
Strategy: Deconstructing a text
Focus: To discover what we know from the text

Why are we doing this?

To unpack the text and fill in the gaps in the narrative
To consider how people might want to alter historical
records
To think about why historical records differ
To think about why people sometimes prefer to forget
events of the past

There is much in the story we dont know. Now

its time for us to raise some questions

Groups of 5 to make a list of questions in momment

but first.
Think of 10 important questions which are 3 types of
open-ended questions:
1. Questions asking for information, e.g. who were
Mary Ellerys parents?
2. Questions that tap into feelings, e.g. How did
Marys parents feel about her leaving for Osiris?
3. Questions that help us think about implications of
events, e.g. What reasons might here be for
eradicating Marys records from historical records?
Why does this happen in real life?

Groups for this activity:

Group
1
Alex
Claire
Olivia M
Hugo

Group
2

Group
3

Group
4

Anna
Harold
Christian
a
Olivia W
Isaac

Stephani
e
Nicholas
Christoph
er
Kiran

Annabel
Natharee
Lawrence
Daniel

Group
5
Isabella
Freja
Max
Silki

You have 12 minutes to pose 10

questions!

Group
6
Dorothea
Marlon
Sebastian
V
Robin

Times up!
Decide which questions you and your group think are the most important.
Order your questions from most to least important.
Each group shares their top question:
1. Where abouts did Mary Ellery disappear ?
2. Does Osiris have resources and if so, what are they?
3. What happened on the mission to planet Osiris?
4. Why was Mary Ellery removed from the historical records?
5. Why did Mary go to Osiris in the first place?
6. How did Mary Ellerys parents feel about her going to Osiris?
7. What was Mary Ellerys relationship like with her crew members?
8. What kind of dr is James Harvey?
9. What do the crew members think went wrong with the mission?
10.What was Marys relationship like with her parents?
11.What is the environment like on planet Osiris?
12.How does Dr Harvey feel about Marys disappearance?
13.What made mary decide to go to Osiris?
14.Are there any other species on Osiris and if so, what are they?
15.What reason did the Venture crew go to Osiris for?

. Write them on your sheets of paper.

. Volunteers needed for hot seating!

People who could answer our

questions

Dr Harvey
Elizabeth Ellery
William Ellery
Crew member Jack
Another crew member Howard
Siri
Historian
Mary Ellerys best friend
Security guard who worked at the Venture launch site
Mary Ellerys guidance counsellor
Journalist
Press photographer

New information gathered from interviews

(hot seating)
1. Mary was a introverted teenager
2. Despite being quiet in person, Mary Ellery was outspoken
on social media
3. Mary was initially excited about the voyage but became
scared on the trip after conducting more in depth research
about the planet Osiris
4. Mary left the vessel in the middle of the voyage. No-one
has spoken of her since We do not know if she survived
5. The journey to Osiris took 4 months. The crew slept for
most of that time
6. Osiris is a hot, volcanic planet considered uninhabitable by
humans.
7. Dr Harvey has no defined speciality he considers himself
a doctor of everything