Well... I didn't write the paper that I thought I was going to, but maybe that is OK. I mean, in my attempt to criticize the standard take on this topic, I had to dig pretty deep to try and find the problems with it. Even though I didn't find anything significant, I had to understand the topic well enough to try to find the issues. I feel like I get it and writing the paper wasn't so bad. It's likley one of my better ones. Let's hope my teacher agrees!
As the student states, the attempt to find fault in the popular stance has forced much deeper thinking than had he simply found corroberating resources and paraphrased their thinking. The thinking is deeper and the understanding of the overall topic is likely much better in the end.