FFSS Internship (Spring) Week 6

 Hello! Here is this week’s update on my internship with the Florida France Soldier Stories project:

The packets are almost ready! I have been continuing to edit the Primary Source Packets I was assigned to complete for Dr. Lyons' EUH-3451 course. The packets need to be completed by February 24, which is when the project will be presented to the class for their assignment, which is coming up quick! 

This week, like the last few, has been focused solely on completing these packets, and finally it is seeming like there is a light at the end of this packet-tunnel. We need a total of 12 packets to be edited and ready for the students to use to create their podcast episodes, and currently there are 10 in our "ready to use" folder. This is amazing progress! It is so very rewarding to see our hard work come together for the class, I am so happy we are almost ready for the students to use them. These packets have incredible stories within them, and they will become great material for the students' podcasts! I am so excited to see how this project plays out once they are assigned to each student. 

Our meeting on Wednesday involved us reviewing the packets we have completed so far and to make notes or any changes that were necessary to complete them. In this meeting, we confirmed the initial rounds of packets that are considered ready to use, and we put them in the related folder. Our conversation usually revolves around formatting questions, or questions related to the narrative and context of the descriptions provided in the packets along with the source attached, but often during the meeting we end up discussing the soldiers' stories and how incredible these narratives are/will be going forward. I enjoy these conversations, and I truly learn so much from this kind of work. I have learned so much about military history and World War II, especially since I learn it from these first-hand stories of men who served in France. I have gained such valuable insight to what serving for the US Army overseas during WWII looked like, and the types of stories that come with those experiences through these sources. This project continues to educate me about this type of historical research, and it is so worth it to see the work come together. 

Editing these packets has been monotonous, and at times seemingly never-ending, but once they come together and I see how many we have been able to get done in this short period of time, it is always so worth it. Within the next few days (leading up to Tuesday), we will be done with the packet editing for the class! I look forward to the projects that come out of this work, and it is amazing that students get to continue the work other students completed in a previous semester, in a previous course! 

See you next week!