How to Add HTML inside of PHP in WordPress

Question

I'm using this code to display a recent WordPress post on my homepage (I am using this code to display a post as I use a static homepage):

<?php 
$arguments = array('numberposts' => '1');
$posts = wp_get_recent_posts($arguments);
foreach($posts as $post){
the_post_thumbnail('full');
the_title();
the_excerpt();
}
?>  

However, I need to be able to add specific classed to the title and excerpt, so the output would be similar to:

<h1> The Title </h1>
<div class="large-8 columns"> Content from the_excerpt </div>

Currently, it simply outputs the code with no classes or divs.

Answer 1

<?php 
$arguments = array('numberposts' => '1');
$posts = wp_get_recent_posts($arguments);
foreach($posts as $post):
?>

<?php the_post_thumbnail('full'); ?>
<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
<div class="large-8 columns"><?php the_excerpt(); ?></div>

<?php endforeach; ?> 

You can break out of php to write html. There should be many examples of this in the default wordpress template files.