See External Cognition Presentation
On pp 60-61, Norman talks about performers of epic poems, and how they don't actually recite poems word for word, they just get the things that matter right: story and rhyme and meter. He suggests the idea of memorizing a poem word for word is a relatively new idea.
Now, memorizing poems is something mostly done in grade school. I wonder if you could instead get children to recite more epic poems, but encourage them not to memorize them word by word, but to re-create them in real time, embellishing as you see fit, but still adhering to the rhyme and meter and whatnot.
Would that be harder or easier?