One of the ways in which benjamin franklin mastered english was to "translate" a text by first paraphrasing it, writing it again as a poem, and then moving it back to prose. by this method, he made sure that he understood everything a text was saying by saying it in his own words. imitate benjamin franklin by selecting a news story on a current event. translate it into a brief short story (add characters, suspense, etc.) or a poem. then reflect on and write about how form influences the outcome of your text.