105 pages • 3 hours read
Gordon KormanUngifted
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 7-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Unrepaired, Donovan Curtis, IQ: 112”
Unable to handle the challenging math and science courses, Donovan knows his only hope is to excel at humanities subjects. However, he struggles there, too, earning a D- on a social studies paper. He tells his teacher he has ADD to buy additional time to work on the paper, but the extra work only raises his grade to a C. After receiving a C- in English, he expands his “list of disorders”—restless leg syndrome, nonspecific bladder issues, dyslexia (49). He fears his teachers will compare notes and begins to have nightmares of an ambulance carting him off to intensive care. The attendant whips off his mask to reveal himself as Dr. Shultz.
At home, Beatrice, who is sluggish and eats only when Donovan hand-feeds her, remains glued to his side. His father puts a bumper sticker on his car proclaiming him a proud honors-student parent. The happiness he takes in Donovan’s apparent achievement make Donovan feel pressure to carry “the emotional well-being” of his family (51). Out running errands with his father, Donovan sees a newspaper report that Hardcastle is suing its insurance company, Parthenon Insurance Group, for refusing to cover damages caused by the statue. The company argues the statue’s design was flawed since only a single bolt connected Atlas’s globe to his shoulders. The article makes clear that Dr. Shultz is still looking for Donovan, who is terrified his family will be responsible for covering the cost of damages.
At school, Donovan decides to make Beatrice his science project. Knowing he cannot “outscience” his classmates, he focuses on producing volumes of notes and giving his project “the personal touch” (52). Arriving early to robotics one day, he sees a note on Mr. Osborne’s desk that his students will need to take Human Growth and Development over the summer. Donovan asks Mr. Osborne about it, and he tells Donovan the students’ only other option is to get “hands-on experience” (54). Donovan thought he had nothing in common with the gifted kids, but they too are “getting jerked around” because of the school district’s mistakes (54). He resolves to help them by recruiting Katie; the students can follow her pregnancy for their hands-on experience. Katie flatly refuses until Donovan threatens to stop caring for sick Beatrice. He hopes that helping solve the Human Growth and Development problem will “strengthen [his] ties” to ASD and distract from his academic deficiencies (55). He feels guilty for blackmailing Katie but reasons that his ancestor, James Donovan, would have done the same in order to survive.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Unsurprised, Chloe Garfinkle, IQ: 159”
Chloe hypothesizes that “Donovan Curtis is smarter than all of us put together” (57). While she realizes this is hyperbole, it contains a kernel of truth, as the school and students had no solution for the Human Growth and Development credits until Donovan “gallop[ed] to our rescue” and offered Katie as the class experiment (57). Donovan also transformed their robotics experience, uniting and energizing the group, leading Chloe to further theorize, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Especially if one of those parts is Donovan” (58).
Katie comes to the lab and announces that nothing takes precedence over using the bathroom when necessary, which Mr. Osborne uses as a teachable moment to discuss the physiognomy of pregnancy. Chloe recognizes that Katie does not want the students to study her, but their enthusiasm and curiosity, especially after she brings out her sonogram photos, surprise Katie. Studying the images, Noah announces that the baby is a boy, which saddens Katie since she and Brad wanted to be surprised by the baby’s sex. While the students demonstrate Tin Man for Katie, she feels the baby kicking and allows Chloe to feel her stomach. Chloe describes it as “strange, but also kind of beautiful” (61). More than just being “one hour closer” to her course credit, she “learned what a brand-new human life felt like” (61).
Chapter 9 Summary: “Unfailing, Noah Youkilis, IQ: 206”
Despite consistently answering math questions incorrectly, Noah receives an A+ in math. When he points out to his teacher, Ms. Bevelaqua, that his actual score is 4.52 percent, she raises his grade to an A++, writing “Computes averages without aid of calculator” in the “comments” section (62). Looking for advice on how to fail, Noah searches “Failing Math” on YouTube, but the videos he finds provide advice for how to pass (62). A video about “Failing Schools” features a news report that, according to Noah, misses the real problem with the education system: the pressure for students like Noah to “live up to [their] potential,” to “strive, achieve” (62). Noah could get all the answers right but finds no purpose in it. Having all the answers “before anybody asks the questions” means “nothing is very surprising” (63). He would prefer to attend the “regular school,” whose students he sees laughing, not caring, and not feeling pressure, but neither his parents nor his teachers would allow it (63).
Noah enjoys YouTube because its content is unpredictable. Donovan also is unpredictable. Noah knows Donovan does not belong at ASD but relishes his presence, though he blames him for solving the problem of Human Growth and Development, Noah’s one opportunity to fail. Noah notes that the robotics students could have incorporated “every refinement allowed by technology” without ever realizing the problem lay with the way they were driving the robot. It took Donovan to point that out.
Donovan also provides opportunities for “excellent YouTube footage,” as when he accidentally sends one of the robot’s lift mechanisms under Ms. Bevelaqua’s skirt, revealing her “bright yellow” underwear “with a pattern of Cartesian geometry” (64). She does not accept Donovan’s apology. Just as the class begins to calm down, Chloe rushes in to announce that owing to the damage in Hardcastle gym, the school’s Valentine’s Day dance is being moved to ASD. Chloe is thrilled; Abigail insists she will not attend. Chloe encourages her to look at it as a “social experiment” (66).
Mr. Osborne offers extra credit for attending the dance. Donovan does not want to attend and snaps at Noah, asking him why he will bother going since he has “more points than you know what to do with” (67). Noah earnestly tells him, “I wish I could give you some of mine [...]. But I don’t think it works that way” (67). Donovan sighs and says, “See you at the dance” (67).
Chapter 10 Summary: “Unpasteurized, Donovan Curtis, IQ: 112”
Katie is furious after she receives an email from Brad that his captain saw her stomach in a YouTube video. Donovan explains that Noah made it and promises to make him take it down. Katie questions Donovan about why he is giving his friends the Daniels “the cold shoulder” and “defending these crazies,” meaning the gifted kids (69). He begins to disagree with her then recalls his argument with the Daniels about the dance and realizes she is right. The Daniels worry “the Academy dorks” will “suck all the coolness out of the air” at the dance, which bothers Donovan (69). He reminds Katie that the ASD kids are her “biggest fans” (69). Katie insists that “[t]here’s something fishy about this whole gifted thing” (70).
The class goes on a field trip to Katie’s obstetrics appointment. Seeing the sonogram and listening to the baby’s heartbeat awe Chloe and Abigail. Mr. Osborne remembers going through the same experience with his wife when their children were born. The class leaves for the final portion of Katie’s exam, and when she returns to the reception area where the students are waiting, they give her a standing ovation. She blushes and smiles with genuine pleasure. On the bus back to school, the bus driver asks the students if they had fun on their field trip. Chloe enthusiastically nods and explains they were “at a pelvic exam” (72). Noah adds that they “listened to a fetus” (72). In response to the driver’s bewildered expression, Donovan explains, “We’re gifted” (72).
Chapter 11 Summary: “Unsuccessful, Dr. Shultz, IQ: 127”
Dr. Shultz is in his office, fretting about the many “screwups” he has had to face. Three weeks after the accident, Hardcastle’s gym has not been repaired, and the insurance company and school remain at an impasse. Most galling for Mr. Shultz, he still has not found the piece of paper bearing the name of the student responsible for the damage, despite having “scoured every millimeter” of his and Cynthia’s offices. Dr. Shultz is convinced the boy is “out there somewhere, laughing at [him], getting off scot-free” (73).
He begins shuffling papers on his desk, obsessively searching for the slip of paper, when Cynthia enters to provide him with an update on the Human Growth and Development project at ASD. Just as she is about to tell him the name of the student whose sister, Katie Patterson, is helping out the class, Dr. Shultz interrupts her, just as he did during the initial mix-up: “Just put it on my desk” (73). He is preoccupied with the Valentine’s Day dance that will take place at ASD, which he plans to attend to ensure everything runs “smoothly,” since the “high achievers” are not “the most the socially adept young people” (74). He muses about the generosity of Katie Patterson and what a wonderful family she must come from. “If only more people were like that,” he says (74).
Chapters 7-11 Analysis
In Chapter 7, Donovan discovers a parallel between himself and the gifted kids: administrative decisions and errors have victimized them both. In his case, he discovers the Atlas statue had a design flaw that caused it to break apart; it was not the force of his strike that caused its collapse. He concludes the school purchased a flawed statue, making it their mistake. For ASD’s students, the missed Human Growth and Development credits will require them to sacrifice their summer plans to make up the course. Donovan’s perception of shared victimization forges within him an emotional bond with his classmates; he realizes they are not so different from him. When his sister and the Daniels speak disparagingly of the gifted kids, Donovan defends them. As with his initial motivation to attend ASD, Donovan’s motives appear double-sided, paradoxically both self-absorbed and empathetic. He realizes he is failing spectacularly at ASD and is desperate to hang on; at the same time, his irritation at the Daniels is genuine and keeps him at a distance from his old friends.
Donovan’s growing bond with his ASD classmates foreshadows his feeling of being trapped between worlds later in the novel and speaks to the difficulty of achieving balance between opposing poles. The system in which he and his classmates—both Hardcastle and ASD—exist pits them in an oppositional relationship. To Donovan, the gifted kids exist in a bubble in which they receive the best of everything, while the regular kids muddle through with sub-par facilities and teachers who assume their students’ intentions are negative. As a result, the gifted kids look down on the regular kids for being intellectually inferior, and the regular kids look down on the gifted kids for being uncool.
The character development of Donovan and Chloe suggests that the two seemingly opposite poles are instead two extremes along a continuum. The administration draws a solid dividing line between gifted and not gifted, but Donovan and Chloe problematize this division. It is Donovan, not the principal, faculty, or ASD’s brilliant students who solves the conundrum of the missing Human Growth and Development credits. It is Chloe who recognizes Donovan’s invaluable contribution not because he saves the students’ summer but because a course that might have simply been a box to tick has become a transformative experience. In addition to being the name of a course that the students take, human growth and development is the novel’s central theme. Significantly, human growth and development occurs for not only students but also adults, especially Katie and Mr. Shultz.
What will cause human growth cannot always be predicted, as demonstrated through Noah’s arc within the novel. His stratospheric IQ outstrips that of any of his teachers and classmates and convinces him that he cannot ever be wrong. He is drawn to YouTube because it is not about right and wrong or intellectual excellence. YouTube captures and revels in the unpredictable, as when Tin Man (driven by Donovan) accidentally exposes Ms. Bevelaqua’s underwear. Noah is weary of the relentless expectations of his teachers and families, who see him as an intellectual machine and miss that his deeper need is to grow and develop socially and emotionally.
Related Titles
By Gordon Korman
