Keep the <?php the_title(); ?> bit and remove <a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" rel="bookmark" title="<?php the_title(); ?>" and </a>

Hope that helps

And this topic should be in Themes and Templates

Create a template then create a page and add the template. Add another page with a title like blog or something. Go to the wordpress admin then Settings > Reading and select 'A static page (select below)', select from the dropdown the page that you made with the template and posts page as blog (or what ever you put as the title).

Hope that helps!