I'm still not sure what you're asking about with the needed element attributes. Perhaps my initial comment wasn't clear. I was saying that normally we would do:

```js
li = $( "<li>", { ... } );
a = $( "<a>", { ... } ).appendTo( li );
span = $( "<span>", { ... } ).appendTo( a );
li.appendTo( somethingInTheDom );
```