Writing poetry "in the manner of"

[Bonsoir]

At DD's school the teachers seem very keen on getting the DCs to write poems "in the manner of" a published poem - I've seen eg Ce qui est comique (Maurice Carême), The Magic Box (Kit Wright), A Visit from St Nicolas (Twas the Night Before Christmas)" (Clement Clarke Moore) tortured reworked by pupils.

Could anyone shed some light on this practice and the pedagogical thinking behind it?

It's quite common to ask children to use a model for their own writing and to provide an example to innovate upon.

Yes, I know - but why is this better than writing your own poem?

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I suppose it encourages them to explore different writing styles which helps them develop their own?

I guess it depends on what the teachers are doing around the activity itself. It's fairly unlikely that the children already have an idea of metre, poetic phraseology (aka bad but poetic grammar.) They may have an idea of rhyme but probably not couplets (and so on and so on.) So the teachers can point these things out to the pupils as they crop up. Whereas spouting forth on a lecture about poetic form on its own would probably just send the children to sleep.

Using established and high quality materials and analysing the stylistic devices used by established and recognised poets helps children to understand the variety of techniques possible.
Using a model can help them write better pieces, leading on to them creating their own poems with better tools at their disposal, rather than being limited to what the average 10 (or 6 or 9) year old knows.
Like selecting interesting words and phrases from their reading to use in their own independent writing. Pushing the boundaries and expanding their knowledge.