You have some great ideas for this topic. After all, you do spend a lot of your leisure time thinking about it and exploring it through your own reading and viewing. But maybe my ideas are too specific or esoteric. If I give the teacher what they are expecting, I might do much better. I've been stung before by researching what I think is cool and the teacher just didn't get it.
I have to write a proposal and I submit pretty much what the teacher said in his example. I do some quick research and find some resources to put in the annotated bibliography. The discussion that I have with the teacher when I submit the proposal is pretty boring. He doesn't tell me anything that I don't already know and this isn't really that interesting an aspect of the topic, in my opinion.
I get on with the research. I know that it isn't due for a while, but I also know that if I don't get it done right away, I'll drag my heels and do a really crappy job the night before it's due. Like tearing off a band-aid, I whip this essay off over the weekend and wait for the due date. Competent, but not my best work, but at least it's done.
The easy way out here is not a great learnign experience. While it is possible that the teacher senses the high level of dissatisfaction with the assignment in the proposal interview, but that behaviour could be interpretted in any number of ways. The student resents the topic but does it because he thinks that it is "best." This would be a lose-lose, even though the student might still end up writing a decent paper and get a decent mark for it.