You have a friend at another school who is a year older who did great in this course that wrote an essay on something related to this and got great marks on it last year. If she won't give you hers, you'll look online. The topic is so vague, you're sure that you can find something that will fit. After all, this is about time-management, one of the most important skills to master for surviving university, right? You need to prioritize where you need to put your best effort, and you should be able to get great marks on this with little effort.
You find the essay, submit a proposal with the essay's thesis statement and bibliography, and get the go ahead from your teacher. You quickly skim the paper again to make sure that there is nothing in it that will identify someone else as the author, stick your name on it and hold on to it until the dues date. Check. What assignment is next?
Besides activities that connect a student to a topic in a meaningful way, it is good to implement some method for checking in on student thinking throughout the research process, regardless of whether that research will be communicated through an essay or some other means. Ideally, you want to see how the student got to where they ended up. It allows you to see the process and the student growth, not just the end result. And while one would hope that plagiarism doesn't occur in our classes, these check ins (inquiry journals, interviews, etc) can be a clue to something odd if they don't line up with the end product.