Add recent posts to static home page

Yes I know, there are a bunch of posts on this topic, but I’m not getting it. I’m new to wordpress, and I haven’t edited page code before, and would rather not if it’s avoidable.

What I want is a static home page with a short block of content below the banner which is always there – under which visitor can see the most recent blog posts. (Headlines, images, maybe part of the first paragraph) I’m using DailyPost theme.

I think this can be done with shortcodes or any of several plugins, but I’m not having success implementing it.

I’d love a quick step-by-step guide of how to get this to display, with nothing left out, no assumptions. I’d love to know how to insert a shortcode, but I don’t know how – the way I’m trying it it just previews the code itself as body copy.

Thanks!