Food (for thought)

Hey everybody,
I know you're thinking, "Pete, it's the holidays; the last thing we want is more food!" Well, the good news is that this food really doesn't have any calories (whether someone sees you ingest it or not).
Actually, I am wondering about how other folks deal with strange/difficult assignments, and I would like to hear some ideas about how others would approach one particular reference question. The question comes to us like this, "So... what does the American Government stand for?" Students have shown us the assignment sheet, and that is exactly how the instructor wrote it. The handout also includes some other suggestions such as talking to friends, family, and veterans of the armed forces to see how they would answer the question. The students are required to cite at least four academic/scholarly sources, but it is not clear what exactly constitutes an academic source. This is for a Political Science class.
How would you approach this question?
Also, how do you generally handle questions that cause confusion or difficulty at the Reference Desk? Do you contact the instructor to discuss difficult assignments? If so, what kind of reaction do you get? Do you share ideas for handling specific problematic questions with others on your Reference staff? What other approaches have you used?
~Pete