Ungifted & Supergifted – college capstone project

Mr. Korman,

Hi. I am in my senior year of college and working on my capstone project. I decided to write a paper analyzing the accuracy of your portrayals of giftedness, specifically the socioemotional and cognitive development of gifted children. With your permission, I’d like to use you as a source and ask you a few questions:

1. What kind of research did you do, if any, when creating the gifted characters in your Ungifted series?

2. What was your inspiration for Ungifted and Supergifted?

3. What was the thought process behind assigning IQ scores to the main characters?

I will likely have follow up questions if and when you reply. I would also like to say that as a former gifted student and future gifted educator, I absolutely love the books. I can only think of one other book I’ve read where the main character was explicitly identified as gifted, and that is Andrew Clements’ Report Card. Most of the time (in my experience), characters are implied to be gifted, and often their only use is to be the hero in a fantasy or science fiction story, like in Matilda, A Wrinkle in Time, or The Mysterious Benedict Society. It’s nice to be represented in the “real” world.

Also, your writing is hilarious. Even as a young adult, I found myself laughing out loud at Donovan’s inner monologue.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing your response.