I found in my student days that the further you go from the typical hot button controversioal issues, the better your grade will be. The reason is, no matter what the beliefs of the teacher, they are going to be assaulted with 50 papers whose subject is probably close to being the same current hot button issue, which makes it boring for the teacher. My instructor banned the subject of abortion. Not because of his own views, and he never said what his own views were, but because he got papers on the subject so much that he just didn't want to read them any more, and making it interesting.
My paper was on the planet Mars and some of the theories of its past history. I got an A+, with a note thanking me for coming up with an interesting topic he had never heard of before.
Nice and good advice. I do want something a little creative/different. Wasn’t necessarily thinking of the teacher’s point of view, but I think you raise a valid point. My class is at community college and it’s a summer class so we have about 15 students in there. Want it to be interesting to read.