When did art become part of Language Arts?

Tweet

I know the schools are trying to encourage classes to share ideas and to reinforce information from other classes but why are students expected to be artists to pass an English Class? My niece has to do a book report. She has to draw 8 comic panels for different sections of the book including an alternate ending and then put a sentence under each explaining them. She not only has to draw but also color them. All this is to be done on a piece of construction paper 11 x 17 (which they don't sell around here, they sell 12 x 18 or normal paper size) that is to be divided into 8 squares. Then on the back she is to write a 3 paragraph summery. Now this is just for this month's book. She has to do a book a month, each book has to have at least 200 pages. Some of the other projects have been a scrapbook, a newspaper, a mobile, to just name a few. This is a lot of art work if you ask me for an English class. I don't even want to see what next months will be. Do other schools have this much art work required in the English classes or is it just something in my area? What do you think about this? Should students be graded for art work in an English Class?