Representing existing HTML as Backbone.js data structures in CoffeeScript
$ ->
    class Item extends Backbone.Model
        name: null

    class ItemList extends Backbone.Collection
        model: Item

    class ItemView extends Backbone.View
        tagName: 'li'

        initialize: =>
            @model.bind('change', this.render)
            @model.view = this

        events:
            'click' : 'clicked'

        clicked: ->
            console.log 'clicked'

        render: =>
            this

    class ItemListView extends Backbone.View
        el: $('ul#test')

        initialize: =>
            $('li', @el).each(@addItem)

        addItem: (item) ->
            item = new ItemView({ el: item })

        render: =>
            this

    Items = new ItemListView

<ul id="test">
    <li>Hi thar</li>
    <li>Yeah</li>
    <li>OK</li>
</ul>

addItem: (item) ->
    model = new ItemView({
        el: item,
        model: new Item({
            // assuming you might want the list item text
            // in the model data
            text: $(item).text()
        })
    })

class ItemListView extends Backbone.View

    initialize: (opts) =>
        opts.items.each(@addItem)

    // ...

Items = new ItemListView({ items: $('ul#test li') })