Will Notwork from ANTH 100, Paige Unturned from CRWR 303, May Skipclass from CINE 220 and Kent Reed from ENGL 364 have each been nominated for Best Performance in a Discussion Group Without Having Done the Reading at the 2026 Students Acting Utterly Casual in Education (SAUCE) awards.
The SAUCEs are meant to recognize students who have excelled in their field — convincing everyone around them they are engaged in their coursework. Four hundred and twenty critics have evaluated tens of thousands of students this year to determine the SAUCE nominees. Each one has spent the semester putting their best efforts into exceptional performances that they could have easily avoided by just preparing ahead of class. Here is a look into their nominated work.
Notwork didn’t shy away from discussion when his ANTH 100 TA asked about his thoughts on Nacirema. The performance was characterized by several key phrases: “jumping off of that,” “this ties into,” “just kind of expanding on what was previously said” and more from his diverse repertoire. He then spouted off absolute nonsense for thirteen minutes, throwing in a big word or two to keep things fresh. Dressed in a squarish outfit of high-waisted khaki pants and a polo shirt buttoned to the top, his participation grade was on lock.
Unturned opted instead for an amicable yet defensive approach, reflected in her flowy chemise and eclectic trousers. She would glance over some of the words from her CRWR 303 classmates’ stories and think of other published works that were kind of related in a very specific, niche way. If the piece was somehow unrelated to the four books she hadn’t skimmed her way through, Unturned displayed an impressive penchant for launching into vague personal anecdotes (factual or fictional) about one of her friends who totally has the same name as the protagonist’s best friend’s brother’s cousin in the story, and would totally find this work relatable and “like, totally resonant.”
Refined yet incomplete, Skipclass approached CINE 220 by reading the title of the week’s given film very intently, but stopped there. This way, she can relay her thoughts going into the piece. The ambiguity of whether or not she has actually referenced any concrete detail about a given screening beyond the use of assonance in the title, tactfully allows room for the audience to build their own interpretation. Dressed casually in a UBC hoodie and unassuming pair of mid-rise jeans, she remains under the radar — making her performance deeply memorable for the SAUCE critics.
Reed took a huge risk in his ENGL 364 performance, pushing the boundaries of acceptable nonparticipation. Instead of contributing anything to the discussion, he simply nodded along in his pretentious black turtleneck, deep in something that resembled thought. When his peers asked what he thought about the piece of Victorian literature they allegedly were supposed to read that week, he simply said he agreed with everything they had already said. “That’s on de-centring the self,” remarked one SAUCE judge on Reed’s performance.
A regular student lacks the sophistication to execute such a baseless tactic, but Reed uses the emotional range he has gained from taking improv classes once a week to appeal to his classmates. Sometimes, he even uses a nondescript adjective to describe the text. This is a technique employed by 2025 SAUCE winner Bea A. Slacker for her performance in ENGL 110 — it’s simple, but if done correctly, it can make an interesting, compelling, thought-provoking difference.
The SAUCE winner will be announced in summer 2026, when the critics get around to picking one.
