What can I use for small text when converting to WordPress?

I’d say there are roughly two approaches to this:

1 Use get_template_part(). This is the normal way of inserting pieces of code into a template. However, you cannot pass arguments to this function. So if you want to repeat ten pieces of code with small variations, you cannot tell get_template_part what the variations are. It is possible to get around this: Passing a variable to get_template_part

2 Use an action hook. This will allow you to pass a variable to a function that generates a piece of html. In your theme you would have do_action('my_hook',$args), while in your functions file you would define add_action ('my_hook','my_hook_action');. This may be more practical, but slightly less standard.