at a loss as to where to start!

Always start with perlintro , perlfaq, and super search :) Tutorials: Perl documentation documentation, Searching Perl Documentation

The standard way to parse XML is DOM + XPATH, say using XML::Twig, XML::LibXML, Mojo::DOM ... see Re: The best module for handling xml for examples, walkthroughs, follow my links and the links they link, like these Re: How to grab a portion of file with regex (don't)(parsing html/xml with xpath/twig/dom, because html::parser is low level), Re: How to grab a portion of file with regex (parsing html/xml with xpath/twig/dom, because xml::parser is low level), Re^4: How to grab a portion of file with regex (parsing html/xml with xpath/twig/dom, because ::parser is low level)

Also, where/what class are you and alyssa118 taking together, and why is your teacher of so little help?