Huh! What do you know? The teacher librarian does have a clue! She tells you about topics that she knows that others have explored in the past and sets you up with some great resources and helps you to refine your research direction. You've got a lot of work to do, but at least you feel like you've got a direction.
You get through the proposal discussion with your teacher and he is impressed with the direction that you've taken. You get back to work and finish it off. You had a lot of reading to do and needed to find more resources to fill in gaps in your research, but a couple of trips back to the Library helped with that. Not the easiest essay you've ever written, but in the end, you're pretty pleased with yourself!
OK, I'm partial to this scenario because it paints the teacher librarian as the hero, but the truth is, sometimes a knowledgeable third party is a great person for a student to talk to. There's no pressure for the student to take any of the advice, but the advice could really help. The teacher librarian is also uniquely situated to see a number of these research assignment throughout the school and may have worked on many of them in the past. It is also likely that this person also has had responded to previous years wrestling with this assignment by beefing up the collection to deal with the specific topic and may have a better knowledge of what is in the collection than anyone else in the school.