This seems to have been mostly lost as it isn't a popular technique anymore, but copywork used to be commonly used in learning how to write. Basically, learners copy out high-quality material word-for-word. The goal isn't just rote repetition, but to internalize structure, style, and rhythm, observe expert-level decisions, and build muscle memory for good habits.

Yes, it works, and it's a great way to approach learning to code as well.

Drawing too. ...take pains and pleasure in constantly copying the best things which you can find done by the hand of great masters. [...] take care to select the best one [...] If you follow the course of one man through constant practice, your intelligence would have to be crude indeed for you not to get some nourishment from it. Then you will find, if nature has granted you any imagination at all, that you will eventually acquire a style individual to yourself, and it cannot help being good; because your hand and your mind, being always accustomed to gather flowers, would ill know how to pluck thorns. --Cennino Cennini, about 1400.

Musicians are still trained this way. The tunes in the Suzuki violin books are the ultimate covers. You can go to a beginning violin recital anywhere in the world and hear exactly the same tunes.

Musicians still use transcriptions of past recordings for their own performances.

Jazz musicians learn "standards." Even jazz improvisation, which you'd think should be 100% original, is taught using virtually the same short list of tunes, such as "Autumn Leaves."

Many musicians don't bother with original material at all, until they're absolutely sick of the standards.